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Sometimes misspelling is funny

Started by Nilla, September 19, 2015, 06:29:40 AM

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Nilla

I suppose you have noticed, I'm not perfect in English. The spell check function is a blessing. A word is red underlined; right click with the mouse and the machine makes a suggestion. Mostly it's easy and works well, but sometimes, I don't understand a bit!

As I wrote about my latest experiences in my bog, among other things, I had some problems to spell the world disease.

The most amazing suggestions came out, everything but the right world. I tried several combinations of s, c, e, i until I finally got the idea of putting an a in it. Than the spelling machine found the right world. I'll tell you some of the suggestions, many worlds are unknown to me: (OK, I didn't seriously thought that all of them could be the right way to spell it, after a few attempts it became a funny kind of game, to try as many possibilities I could think of and watch what came out)

sidepiece, dissidence, decide, despise, diciest, device, demise, decisive, disuse, disguise, dissed, diereses, diesel, dissed, dies ice dies-ice, dices, dissect

And note I made no weird kind of spelling, just any possible combination of d + i/e/ie + s/c + i/e/ie+ s/c as it sounds.



Pangaea

That's a lot of weird suggestions :D

Spell checkers are great, but a weakness with them, pretty darn hard to overcome I reckon, is that correctly spelled words that are incorrect in the context are not picked up. For instance, world instead of word ;)

Punctuation can be a hoot too  ;D


A Nonny Moose

Yes, a spelling checker will fail because context is not considered.  A grammar checker, which was tried a few years ago, turned out to be a flop as well because it couldn't be made comprehensive enough and still operate at a reasonable speed.

Just consider all the irregularities and colloquialisms you use in your language, and try to figure out how to put that into a finite automaton (computer program).  I think it is an NP complete problem.
Go not to the oracle, for it will say both yea and nay.

[Gone, but not forgotten. Rest easy, you are no longer banished.]
https://www.haskettfh.com/winterton-john-hensall/

Nilla

There is a grammar check in Word. I haven't even a very recent copy but Word 2007. I suppose it isn't fool proof, but I actually used it at the beginning, as I started to write on this site. Wrote in Word and copied it here. Because of that grammar check.

I have learned much English from listening; watching films and TV programs, so I noticed I couldn't hold common equal sounding words apart. You have a lot of such words in your language;  were/where, than/then, which/witch, word/world  and so on, not to speak from lie and lay, that @irrelevant explained in that other thread. I wasn't even aware of the difference.  :-[  Word 2007 warned me, as I mixed simple things up. I don't use Word anymore, I know the difference most of the times now, but I notice that I sometimes still make such mistakes; my first thread; word/world. Sorry for that.

irrelevant

Most of the time, I don't even notice when someone misspells a word, although if I do it, it drives me crazy and I must fix it right now!  ;D  ::)

chillzz

yes spell check function in browser can be funny, depending on which browser you use and of course the language setting of that browser.


funny that your opening post has a few typo's / spelling errors (on purpose? ) ;)

and yes as noticed by @Nilla Microsoft Word and Apache Open Office do have spell and grammar checks, based on rule lists. I have to say, that Word is actually quite accurate with grammar and punctuation, both in English and my mother tongue Dutch. And that's an older version (2007 and 2010 ) as well.

as @Pangaea noticed the correct spelling, but wrong word for the context, is indeed a problem that hardly can be overcome.

and @Nilla that is exactly the way my generation (generation X) learned English over here in the Netherlands too. TV series, movies in the original American English, with Dutch subtitles.  Music singing along phonetically, reading lyrics from LP cover / cd booklet. 
Then later in high school we learned the Queens English in class :)


@irrelevant hahahaah been there, done that.. it drives me crazy too!


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A Nonny Moose

I haven't studied other languages than English very assiduously.  I can sort of get along in Italian, French (both langue d'Oui and langue D'Oc) but one of the things I find in English is the number of homonyms.  These are words that sound the same, are spelled differently (or not), and have completely different meanings dependent on the context.  How do you like this little gem:

The peer peered down the pier.

The there are some precise meanings that get slopped over.  Words like dock (noun).  A dock is an area of water in which you park a boat.  It is not the thing you tie up to, which can be a pier or a slip.  And in English, almost any noun can become a verb.  You dock a boat by moving it into a dock and tieing it to a pier.
Go not to the oracle, for it will say both yea and nay.

[Gone, but not forgotten. Rest easy, you are no longer banished.]
https://www.haskettfh.com/winterton-john-hensall/

irrelevant

#7
One of my favorite things is a noun that has been verbed. ;)

Quote from: A Nonny Moose on September 19, 2015, 12:53:49 PM

The peer peered down the pier.


That's a good one!  :D How about this: More Moors are mooring near the moor.

"Moor" rhymes with "more" only in certain regions. It definitely rhymes where I grew up, in Indiana.

I made this one up: Come to the State Fair, where there's fairly fair Fair fare for a fair fare.

chillzz

Quote from: A Nonny Moose on September 19, 2015, 12:53:49 PM
but one of the things I find in English is the number of homonyms.  These are words that sound the same, are spelled differently (or not), and have completely different meanings dependent on the context.


you can find homonyms, homophone, homograph, polysemy and 'false friends' in many languages, like germanic and romance languages.
However, English does seem to have many yes, just like Dutch.. after all, they're related.


Quote from: irrelevant on September 19, 2015, 01:25:45 PM
One of my favorite things is a noun that has been verbed. ;)
yep, also common in other languages. Especially when it's a new product/invention. i.e. search the internet.. to google ;) although i grew up using gopher/veronica  and later altavista as the to go to search engine. same as copy, to copy, facsimile (to fax)  etc. etc.

Great examples a nonny moose & @irrelevant !
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