This author seems awfully worried about MS Word's disapproval. How hard is it to right click the red squiggly underlined word, and choose add to dictionary? Then you are safe! Safe! from that disapproval.

That's hardly the point.

False hits in a spell checker ruin its effectiveness. They add too much noise, which makes people disregard the red squiggly altogether.

Ha, a fair point. I do think that many people put too much trust in Word's spell checker, however, paying too much fealty to the squiggly. I recall reading a classmate's paper on Edgar Allen Poe in my ninth grade English class in which the author had clearly just opened the spell check and clicked "accept change" every time--there were lots of dubious words that were similar to the intended word but obviously wrong. (Though this was before the era of real-time spell checking with the squigglies.)

I had a similar experience when I was the TA for a intro chemistry class for freshmen. We had one lab report due on the topic of concentration, making solutions and the process of solvation. One student turned in a very informative essay on SALvation, leading me to discover that the way to be redeemed by God is to dissolve some salt in water.

That's Edgar Allan Poe.

tarheelphan:

I had a similar experience when I was the TA for a intro chemistry class for freshmen. We had one lab report due on the topic of concentration, making solutions and the process of solvation. One student turned in a very informative essay on SALvation, leading me to discover that the way to be redeemed by God is to dissolve some salt in water.

literally lol

Dammit! (Re: Allan Poe)