Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Word Checker

Sorry for the incontinence...
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The idea is a "spell checker" that also looks for frequently confused words and also infrequently used words. It would also look at word combinations. It would not try to analyze the subject of the document because that is too tricky.

For example, rite is an uncommon word nowadays, and is often confused with right. However, there are uses of the word that would be obviously correct even to a computer, for example, there is no such thing as a "Scottish Right" temple but there are "Scottish Rite" temples. The same goes with last rites, rite of passage, etc.

So if one of these words is encountered in your document, the word processor would underline the word in something other than the green or red commonly used for grammar and obvious spelling errors, perhaps yellow.

Then if the user moused over the word, a pop-up bubble appears with "Are you sure you didn't mean ____? more...". If the user clicks on the word, it is replaced. If the user clicks "more...", then the definitions of the words are shown, allowing the user to confirm the correct one.

Spacecoyote, Dec 27 2007

Subject-Sensing Spell-Checker Subject-Sensing_20Spell-Checker
Not the same idea. [Spacecoyote, Dec 27 2007]

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       So what you want is a context checker? Honestly, "Sorry for the incontinence" might be appropriate. I'd rather proof-read the document than have an application nag me (more than they do already).
phoenix, Dec 27 2007
  

       Well I wanted the pop-up to be as unobtrusive as possible, and since its fairly likely that one would know the definition of both words already, I thought that the "more..." link would be a better idea.
Spacecoyote, Dec 27 2007
  

       No, [phoenix], that would be more like [phundug]'s Subject-Sensing Spell-Checker.   

       This would just recognize that incontinence and inconvenience (for example) are commonly confused and that inconvenience is a more commonly used word than incontinence, rather than simply replacing a misspelled word with whatever looks closest (which commonly results in the word "incontinence" being used incorrectly in the first place).   

       You might not like software correcting you and that's fine with me, just disable it then. But many people don't mind being nagged, and rely on the software for help.   

       I myself have misspelled incontinence several times right now but I've been rescued by the Firefox spell checker.
Spacecoyote, Dec 27 2007
  

       Another thing I just noticed (in my own post which I just corrected), that I often confuse then and than...it's annoying.
Spacecoyote, Dec 27 2007
  
      
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