By Charles Miller
Computerized spellcheckers are handy, but there are some errors only humans can catch. It is tempting to rely on automated spellchecking to catch all of your goofs—just remember this software tool has its limits. Without a doubt, the biggest limitation is catching mistakes related to homonyms, and the English language is full of them.
Homonyms can be words with identical pronunciations but different spellings and meanings, such as to, too, and two. Worse, a homonym can also be one word with different pronunciations, such as “Polish furniture polish.”
As spellcheckers have improved to be more sophisticated and incorporate grammar checking, this has enhanced the computer’s ability to recognize the context in which words are used and more reliably catch the use of the wrong word. The fact remains though that it is a challenge even for human proofreaders to see every correctly spelled word that is still not the correct word.
Misuse of a homonym can ruin an otherwise literate document. Sometimes readers who notice homonym errors may simply stop reading. It can be deadly serious if the document is an important business proposal or a résumé.
Another thing about spellcheckers is how they deal with diacritics. English usually does not borrow accents from foreign words, so in the previous paragraph, the word “résumé” might not retain the accents taken from French after being “corrected” by a spellchecker. In other languages, Spanish for example, failing to include diacritics is a spelling error.
It is a wonder that young children learning to read and write can master even a portion of the confusing homonyms of the English language. A child was once asked why she had chosen the name “Gladly” for her teddy bear with inward-oriented eyes. “Because at church we sang about ‘Gladly the cross-eyed bear.’”
The shortcomings of computers have prompted some writers to wax poetic. There is a classic poem, “Ode to the Spell Checker,” that has been circulating on the internet for decades:
Eye have a spelling chequer,
It came with my pea sea.
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss Steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
and weight four it two say
Weather Eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid,
It nose bee fore two long,
and Eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no,
Its letter perfect awl the weigh.
My spell chequer tolled me sew.
About the author of the poem, “Ass far ass eye no, the sauce is unknown.”
Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant, a frequent visitor to San Miguel since 1981, and now practically a full-time resident. He may be contacted at 415-101-8528 or email FAQ8@SMAguru.com.
