Can You Trust Spell Check?

By Mary G. White

Spell check can be trusted 100 percent to do its job.  A better question is whether or not you understand what spell check’s job really is.  Spell check’s function is quite simple, really.  The name says it all.  Spell check checks spelling.  If you expect more than that from spell check, you will be disappointed. 

If a document contains a word that isn’t really a word, spell check will let you know.  That is all spell check does.  That is all it is supposed to do.  The rest is up to you!

However, when you expect spell check to catch your word usage problems, you are expecting it to do more than its job.  Many of the most common typographical errors will not be picked up by spell check.  A spell checking program doesn’t know if you mean to type than or then.  All it knows is that both that and then are words.

Additionally, many of the mistakes that people make when they write refer to improper word usage.  People frequently use homonyms incorrectly in their writing.  Only careful human proofreading by someone with strong language usage skills can detect these types of errors. 

Spell check will never know that you didn’t buy a pear of shoes.  It will never know that you didn’t say high to Steve in the elevator.  Spell check can’t tell the difference between them, these, and those.  You are responsible for your own writing. 

Don’t blame spell check when you use the wrong words in your writing.  You can trust that spell check will never pick up on mistakes related to whether or not you are using the correct words in your writing.  Spell check isn’t called word usage check.  It can’t tell if your sentences make sense or not. 

When you understand that spell check is only designed to let you know if your document contains non-words you will realize that you can trust it to do its job.  Proofreading, unfortunately, is not a job that you can delegate to spell check!

About the Author:

Mary Gormandy White is Director of Continuing Education and Corporate Training at Mobile Technical Institute http://www.mobiletechwebsite.com.  She teaches seminars, classes, and makes conference presentations on Business Writing and a number of additional management, customer service, and communication topics.  Visit http://www.dailycareerconnection.com regularly for useful professional development tips and career advice. 

*This article may be reprinted provided the author bio and website links are included.