3 on Dangers of spelling correctors

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ 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


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