Interesting People mailing list archives
3 on Dangers of spelling correctors
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sun, 08 Dec 2002 15:15:58 -0500
------ Forwarded Message From: Tom Fairlie <tfairlie () attbi com> Date: Sun, 08 Dec 2002 13:37:35 -0600 To: dave () farber net Subject: Re: <[IP]> Dangers of spelling correctors Amusing, but Outlook doesn't correct automatically. It can be set to *check* automatically (which is *not* the default), but will never *correct* automatically. The user has to accept all changes and this one obviously wasn't paying attention. Tom Fairlie ------ End of Forwarded Message ------ Forwarded Message From: Robert Lee <robertslee () comcast net> Date: Sun, 08 Dec 2002 14:38:15 -0500 To: dave () farber net Subject: RE: <[IP]> Dangers of spelling correctors I once wrote a book that dealt with the Bronx. The word nigger was used repeatedly in dialogue. I used MicroPro's WordStar to spell check it. It changed each instance of the word nigger to negro. Fascinated, I spent a half hour typing in words like kike, pape, guinea, dego, spic, pollak. It objected to none of these. I then went to coarse slang for women. No objections. Then went to coarse words for homosexuals. No objections. Then went to coarse words for genitalia. No objections. Apparently the only thing that WordStar would not countenance was nigger. As you can see, Microsoft Word is not similarly imbued. Robert Lee 610-642-9705 From: Douglas Comer <comer () cs purdue edu> Date: Sun, 08 Dec 2002 14:40:26 -0500 (EST) To: dave () farber net Subject: *Advantages* of spelling correctors Although the spelling correction that Spaf reports seems funny, there may be a message in it. For example, someone once sent me a document in which MS spelling correction made the following change: ``stateful'' => ``shameful'' Cheers, Doug ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To unsubscribe or update your address, click http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- 3 on Dangers of spelling correctors Dave Farber (Dec 08)