Ask HN: Do you use a spell checker?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7150857

by plg • 12 years ago

4 7 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

context: my students were shocked to find out that I don't use a spell checker (I never have)... well apart from the one between my ears of course

plg3• 12 years ago

context: my students were shocked to find out that I don't use a spell checker (I never have)... well apart from the one between my ears of course

nmc2• 12 years ago

You should edit your post to add that as the "text" of the post.

plg3• 12 years ago

thanks for the pointer, done

nmc2• 12 years ago

A spell checker can be useful to correct typos, especially if you are like me — I look at the keyboard about 50% of the time when I type.

In my mother tongue, I have a perfect orthographical sense: I just need a glimpse of a word to know if the spelling is correct. As a result, proof-reading requires close to zero effort, and I do not use a spell checker for my mother tongue.

I type a lot in English, and I have come to realize that I do not have this same orthographical sense. Particularly, there are a lot of transparent words between English and my mother tongue with just subtle differences in the spelling, which makes me likely to spell them wrong — e.g. replace "n" by "nn" or "e" by "ea". So I usually have a spell checker on when I type in English.

Also, did you ask your students why they were shocked?

MichaelStubbs• 12 years ago

For the vast majority of the time, I don't. If I ever get truly stuck, Google often gives me a push in the right direction.

fr0sty• 12 years ago

Do you take pains to disable the various spell-checkers that exist or do you just use software which does not have them on by default?

plg3• 12 years ago

mainly I use plain text editors like sublime text, emacs, etc

if I happen to use something with a spell checker I usually don't even notice it, and if I do I turn it off

now it's not that I never make typos, or I never make spelling mistakes. These happen all the time. The point is that I correct them when I read, and re-read, edit, and re-edit whatever I am working on (even a "simple" email)... using the spellchecker between my ears

It has the desirable side effect that I also am 'forced' to re-read what I've written, and inevitably, I change something, I hope to make it better

I think a lot of people have a workflow that goes something like this:

- hammer out some text - correct errors in real time based on spell checker flags - at the end, scan the document for spell checker colors; if none, then I am done!

I am a huge proponent of reading and re-reading whatever I am writing at least 5 times, and editing/changing as I go. I spot typos and spelling mistakes via this process.

Ask HN: Do you use a spell checker?

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