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Are We Getting too Much Help from Word? | Taut

George Hopkins — Sat, 22 Mar 2003 09:29:00 +0000

Forum: Off topic
Topic: Are We Getting too Much Help from Word?
Poster: George Hopkins
Post title: Taut

Hello Harry,

A slip of the keyboard? The word is taught.
[addsig]

Are We Getting too Much Help from Word? | it depends..

Harry Bornemann — Tue, 18 Mar 2003 13:26:00 +0000

Forum: Off topic
Topic: Are We Getting too Much Help from Word?
Poster: Harry Bornemann
Post title: it depends..

It would probably be difficult to get accustomed to the standards of electric or even mechanic typewriters again (although I\'ve been a professional for that).

But some days ago I had to do a transcript of 12 pages English text from paper and the Word correction taught me a lot

[ This Message was edited by: Harry_B on 2003-03-22 14:19]

Are We Getting too Much Help from Word? | Spellchecking

George Hopkins — Tue, 18 Mar 2003 09:29:00 +0000

Forum: Off topic
Topic: Are We Getting too Much Help from Word?
Poster: George Hopkins
Post title: Spellchecking

We have to remember that what is offered is advice, nothing else.

Once upon a time I used WordPerfect and preferred it to Word, not least because it gave me the choice of modern British English spelling, as recommended by dictionaries such as Oxford or Collins.

For example, the \'first choice\' of spelling organization with a z instead of organisation with an s.

Modern spelling gives a text a more \"international\" flavour, while still retaining \"proper\" spelling, yes, of words like flavour, colour, etc. Word does not support this advantage.

Are We Getting too Much Help from Word? | Tell me that again

Parrot — Mon, 17 Mar 2003 21:45:00 +0000

Forum: Off topic
Topic: Are We Getting too Much Help from Word?
Poster: Parrot
Post title: Tell me that again

I used to have a problem with a Word 2000 that went crazy \"riding on\" 4 languages. Now I have the high-security Word XP configured to recognize all four... and it throws out my Tagalog files.

Oh, yes. I have to disable the corrector in order to overwrite files at all.

Sometimes I feel Bill Gates never had us in mind as clients. And the website doesn\'t give any human assistance, either.

Are We Getting too Much Help from Word? | Confirming the obvious?

Carolyn Denoncourt (X) — Mon, 17 Mar 2003 20:55:00 +0000

Forum: Off topic
Topic: Are We Getting too Much Help from Word?
Poster: Carolyn Denoncourt (X)
Post title: Confirming the obvious?

It seems like a lot of research these days is done just to provide a thesis topic for a student. What would be interesting would be to see if the percentage of people \"doing worse\" when regularly using spell/grammar check is about the same percentage of the general population who exhibited spelling/grammar deficiencies even before word processing. It\'s possible that those of us with good spell/grammar skills just turn off Microsoft\'s intrusive \"help\" and only rarely use it. I know that\'s what I prefer to do.

Are We Getting too Much Help from Word? | I have to agree - I got lazy...

Adriana Caraccio Morgan, Dip Trans IOL — Mon, 17 Mar 2003 17:26:00 +0000

Forum: Off topic
Topic: Are We Getting too Much Help from Word?
Poster: Adriana Caraccio Morgan, Dip Trans IOL
Post title: I have to agree - I got lazy...

Hello,

Very interesting forum, and although I\'m very busy at the moment, I had to share my thoughts with you.

Unfortunately, have to say that I agree. I got lazy, maybe, don\'t know if that\'s the best word. Maybe I trust the spellchecker too much now. In the past, I used to have the right spelling in my head, I could even \'see\' the word before writing it. This both in Portuguese and in English. Now... not anymore...

Maybe I\'m just getting old, who knows?

Best

Adriana

Brazil

Are We Getting too Much Help from Word? | Well,

PAS — Mon, 17 Mar 2003 16:00:00 +0000

Forum: Off topic
Topic: Are We Getting too Much Help from Word?
Poster: PAS
Post title: Well,

I always took pride in my spelling ability and I don\'t think it got worse by using MS Word. Most of the corrections it makes (for me) are typos.

What did suffer in the long time I\'ve been using a computer is the quality of my handwriting. It was never very pretty, but now it\'s noticeably worse.

What\'s worse, when I sit down to make a list of something, or write something down (a note, some ideas), I get the urge to turn on the computer and write it, rather than take a piece of paper and pen.

Another thing is auto-correct short-cuts. I made so many auto-corrections for Polish words with diacritical signs that now when I sit down at another computer, I\'m hopelessly lost (but then the spellchecker comes in and that\'s where we left off

Are We Getting too Much Help from Word?

Geneviève von Levetzow — Mon, 17 Mar 2003 15:47:00 +0000

Forum: Off topic
Topic: Are We Getting too Much Help from Word?
Poster: Geneviève von Levetzow

[url removed]

Is it possible to get too much help? According to a recent University of Pittsburgh study, the answer is yes. People who regularly use Microsoft Word\'s spelling and grammar checker seem to have worse writing skills than those who dont. They even, apparently, have lower SAT scores. Obviously, thats not what Microsoft and other word processing application vendors like Corel, maker of WordPerfect, had in mind when they introduced these tools. Has this been your experience? Does the quality of your writing suffer when you use these tools? Do you get lazy, or do these grammar and spelling checkers teach you things you didnt know before? Tell us all about it in our spell-check-free forum.