As an English teacher and tutor, I see many students with problems resulting
from overreliance on spellcheck. While spellcheck is a great feature, even
better would be an advanced spellcheck option for homonyms--words that are
spelled differently but sound the same, like their/there/they're or
breaking/braking. Students constantly "misspell" these words, but spellcheck
never finds them because, they are, after all, correct in another context.
It would be great if poor spellers could perform an "advanced spellcheck"
that would stop at homonyms and alert a writer to additional possibilities
for word choices. This would be a great boon to non-native English speakers
as well, since this is one of the most difficult parts of English to learn,
and it would sure improve business communication by helping bad spellers
avoid embarrassing errors. Best yet, it would be a teaching function that
would help people improve their spelling over time. Thanks for listening.

----------------
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This partially already exists....but a good idea.

Tools | Options, Spelling and Grammar tab, click on Settings, you can make
sure it checks "commonly confused words", which I think catches
"there/their". Adding "all homonyms" as an option to check could be nice.

A manual approach: people with especial difficulty might add homonyms to an
Exclude Dictionary--then Spellcheck would always flag that word as wrong and
they would be reminded to stop and think about it. Put "exclude dictionary"
into Help for more info.

My bugbear is lead/led.


On 10/27/05 8:52 PM, "beccasailor" wrote:

As an English teacher and tutor, I see many students with problems resulting
from overreliance on spellcheck. While spellcheck is a great feature, even
better would be an advanced spellcheck option for homonyms--words that are
spelled differently but sound the same, like their/there/they're or
breaking/braking. Students constantly "misspell" these words, but spellcheck
never finds them because, they are, after all, correct in another context.
It would be great if poor spellers could perform an "advanced spellcheck"
that would stop at homonyms and alert a writer to additional possibilities
for word choices. This would be a great boon to non-native English speakers
as well, since this is one of the most difficult parts of English to learn,
and it would sure improve business communication by helping bad spellers
avoid embarrassing errors. Best yet, it would be a teaching function that
would help people improve their spelling over time. Thanks for listening.

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/comm...=62217362-17cc
-480f-9dbe-5e5b38f0b29c&dg=microsoft.public.word.docmanagemen t

--
Daiya Mitchell, MVP Mac/Word
Word FAQ: http://www.word.mvps.org/
MacWord Tips: http://www.word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/
What's an MVP? A volunteer! Read the FAQ: http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/