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Computer: Word Processor: Spelling
Reverse Spellchecker   (+7)  [vote for, against]
A browser add-on,

that automagically marks suspect words, phrases and grammar of incoming text - other people's writings - so your subconscious doesn't end up banging its head against the wall every couple of sentences, trying to parse the illiterate, ignorant or inconsiderate.

The idea isn't to correct, or to annoyingly suggest alternate lunacies, simply to give the reader's brain a heads-up in advance that conscious intervention may be required.

Comes equipped with the usual user-settable parameters; can also be used for .pdf's, e-mail, etc.
-- FlyingToaster, Apr 23 2014

personal spellchecker Minimalist_20SpellChecker
[FlyingToaster, Jan 20 2016]

I would actually like a filter that randomly switches between British Empire, and North American spellings. It should edit incoming messages.

Grammar nice eftsoons, yet adaptable to degree some. In other words it's pathologically bad grammar that makes meaning obscure, and yet there's even some room for that.

The irritations I'd go along with (hang on, just give me a mo to get irritated, here) are those directed at lazy inconsideration. Someone who's just too bone idle to at least attempt the basics deserves to be ignored.

However, I think we should be as tolerant as possible of genuine attempts that fail in ways not fatal to communication. Broken English is becoming the language through which humanity misunderstands ... er sorry .. each other. It no longer belongs exclusively to us regular abusers. Certainly picky little details like alternative spellings need to at least be let slip (and I would go so far as to actively subvert the spelling Nazis.)

So maybe to please everyone, the app should be configurable so as to be pleasing to any user. even ee cummings. or. pedlar of phrase speech. jp donleavy. who would probably wet his panties about the capitalization of this. paragraph.
-- skoomphemph, Apr 23 2014


" Broken English is becoming the language through which humanity misunderstands ... er sorry .. each other. It no longer belongs exclusively to us regular abusers. Certainly picky little details like alternative spellings need to at least be let slip (and I would go so far as to actively subvert the spelling Nazis.)"

Well, I can sit on either side of that fence. Language evolves, and anything that compels the kids of today to pick up a keyboard or text via arcane technologies (techz?) is a step towards fostering communications. Leetspeak drives me crazy, but I was already anyway. And what about Volapunk?

Perhaps the app should be configurable to offer suggestions for spellings in the above whenever you slavishly use the correct spelling and grammar.

Oh, and [Jutta], thanks for building in spellchecking here.
-- normzone, Apr 23 2014


I thought this would be a simple macro that substituted some f for m, or n. Also an occasional oo instead of u. Just getting the job done, you know.
-- bungston, Apr 23 2014


Yes, and thanks to whoever further tweaked the spellchecker to allow purposely misspelled words.

...is it whoever, or whomever?
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Apr 23 2014


Newspeakses me doubleplusunlikes. Not meaning to take for spell subversion. Only intending is not care overmuch for thing like color vs colour. Letsfaceit both is wrong. So why choose?

Adding more redundant words and spellings deliberately is something a lot of us decent folks consider to be a crime against humanity. Laxity and playfulness are not too disgusting, but systematic vandalism of the language is way beyond just spelling slightly more freely - but, uh, standardly.

I wouldn't want warnings that the misspelling "cannibalize" (or "cannibalise" - Scheiss egal) was on its way, and to watch out; but if possible, I would like the address of the guy who wrote "phr33k", so I can go there, and cut his throat for the sake of humanity. The producers of this app and I are ad idem about certain mal mots et phrases.
-- skoomphemph, Apr 23 2014


Wow that was hard to read.

I read it in your voice.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Apr 23 2014


A. Add an acronym translator and a fancy bow and you've got a marketable product.

B. Something ELSE that sends back junk mail with red line annotations, tickles the gremlin in me. HE HE.
-- popbottle, Apr 23 2014


" B. Something ELSE that sends back junk mail with red line annotations, tickles the gremlin in me. HE HE. — popbottle, Apr 23 2014 "

I would pay for that, and subscribe to updates.
-- normzone, Apr 24 2014


['sleep] I think it's the same thing in this case. Didn't used to be, and she agreed to parse it in.
-- normzone, Apr 24 2014


I think grammar like that in my previous post here should be severly punished - maybe by permanent exile to the Moon.

However, I think we should let down the drawbridge, and raise the portcullis for mistakes that are regular but incorrect.

Example: the plural "mouses". This should be accepted as correct, but naïve. It would be stupid to go and reform the language to simplify it, but why not expand it a little? No much. And carefully. But in cases where the new rule is utterly reasonable, and doesn't break past usage, what's to be lost?

This is what I'd like built in to my copy. Of course it should also be part of the default behavior. An orange line warns "That usage is naive".
-- skoomphemph, Apr 24 2014


Oddly enough I could read your previous annotation with little trouble. But (at which time I point to "conversational text" to excuse the wotsis at the beginning of a sentence) there are times when my eyes have gone over the same text passage three or four times with no luck, and had to pull the emergency cord to get my brain actively involved in parsing shoddy workmanship.

That's what the app is designed to do; not teach English, but give a bit of a heads up to avoid mental train wrecks.

Everything's configurable of course, but I had in mind the suspect portions simply presented in a slighly lighter shade of the text colour.
-- FlyingToaster, Apr 24 2014


I forgot the croissant. Error corrected.

Yes, the original idea, exactly as is, would provide useful and novel functionality. I could do with one while writing (although lazy oops-bailouts from runaway unsustainable sentences sometimes half-work).

All the extensions proposed here (especially contradictory suggestions to change the incoming text) are really just different alternatives somehow provoked by the idea. And some of us have the propensity to get a bit carried away.
-- skoomphemph, Apr 24 2014


For (outgoing) writing I've "Minimalist Spellchecker", which dictionary is user built.

Anno drift is a given but... baby needs a new pair of steam-powered ambulators.
-- FlyingToaster, Apr 25 2014


or jast sumbody who grue up out side the inglish speaking places, or who's typing on a smartphone with an auto spellchecker that sneaks in unnoticeable changes whale your writing.
-- pashute, Apr 26 2014


... something wrong with the original purpose ?
-- FlyingToaster, Jan 20 2016


ah, that would be a job for my other post <link>.
-- FlyingToaster, Jan 20 2016



random, halfbakery