Typo hunters
I’ve always liked spelling and writing, and when I was a kid I was one of the best spellers in my class. Now, in my professional as well as my personal life, I’ve discovered how important it is to be able to spell correctly.
When I read other people’s writings, and even more, when I see companies’ presentations, brochures etc, I’ve noted how much a misspelled word affects my impression of it. One typo: fine, shit happens. Lots of typos: a sloppy and rushed impression. And when I read things what web developers have written, if it’s littered with typos, I definitely think twice before I want them to write any code for me.
When I became friends with Faruk, I immediately realized how good he was at spotting typos in my posts. Naturally, my reaction was part gratefulness, part me in turn scrutinizing his posts to find errors (and man, was that hard! 
). In the end, though, I really do appreciate when people notify me when I have typos in my text, so if you see anything, please let me know.
And remember: it’s our language that differs us from apes. 
18 Comments/Reactions
December 12th, 2005 at 11:17
I always try to write to the highest standard (no spelling mistakes or grammatical errors), but I’ve always been useless at spelling
Still there shouldn’t be too much wrong on my site.
December 12th, 2005 at 11:18
*cough* Typos.
December 12th, 2005 at 13:52
I can’t understand why many people don’t use the services of professional editors. They charge about 40-100 Euros per page. This is very few if you make a printig for thousands of Euros…
And by the way don’t judge my spelling-skills by my english spellig — german works better
December 12th, 2005 at 14:06
I am a bad speller by nature. I am not sure if it is years of coding or that I just got worse as I grew older, I was good at school but had the label of dyslexic added (whether you agree it’s a real condition or not is a point of debate). Now, I always get someone else to read through things for me and it works well. I have 2 people (one at work and one for freelance / home), who are great resources and invaluable to me.
December 12th, 2005 at 15:34
I’ve found that the best way to find typos is to have someone else proofread your work. For some reason, I tend to miss typos in my own writing, but I can find them fairly easily in other people’s.
*Crosses fingers and hopes that this post is typo-free*
December 12th, 2005 at 16:01
Rawk, that’s like… several compliments in one paragraph. Thanks!
Isn’t it nice to have the peer pressure of spelling nazis to keep you checking your own posts for mistakes?
December 12th, 2005 at 16:18
Someone should “invent” an AJAX-based spelling checker for blog software.
This article reminds me of a former job I had. I used to teach basic computer skills at St. Albert Adult Learning Centre. At the point in the course when I would teach the use of the spelling checker, I would hand out a paper (face down with instructions not to turn it over), read from my copy, then ask them to turn the paper over and read what it says. My students quite enjoyed this lesson.
December 12th, 2005 at 17:21
Ah yes, that poem is very amusing.
I also really like this page with tough pronounciations that was linked on the page that Robert linked to (under Related Reading). It’s not in perfect rhyme (though it wouldn’t take much effort to make it so) but it still has you looking twice at half of it, hehe.
December 12th, 2005 at 20:22
People,
Thanks for sharing!
I wish I had time to give each and everyone of you a specific reply, but I’m too pressured at work at the moment…
December 13th, 2005 at 0:00
Our language and our 2% or so of different DNA.
December 13th, 2005 at 1:38
I always try my best to spell things correctly, and I’m mildly annoyed when others don’t. It’s rather frustrating to see people in my graphic design courses misspelling things, since they’re likely to become copywriters to at least some degree–and few things say “I’m an amateur!” like horrid spelling and grammar. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that most people will even notice the atrocities that are committed…
December 13th, 2005 at 4:11
Someone should “invent†an AJAX-based spelling checker for blog software.
It’s called a Mac.
It’ll check your spelling in every application if you want it to.
Of course, mere spell checking doesn’t help with homophones, malapropisms, grammar, punctuation, or misspellings that match other words (i.e. “lose” vs “loose”). I’m always surprised by how poor many self-styled writers are at writing.
December 13th, 2005 at 10:03
Glen,
Yeah, that DNA thing too…
jordan,
I hear you, I hear you very well.
Paul,
Absolutely, in the end you actually need to know how to spell to (or pay someone for it).
December 13th, 2005 at 10:25
I like it when people tell me about typos but I definitely prefer it if they contact me through the contact form rather than via the comments.
December 13th, 2005 at 15:11
Paul, ouch!
LOL
December 13th, 2005 at 15:41
Jules,
Here is a simple javascript object for autocompletion:
http://www.challenger.se/samples/woco.htm
It supports 28 languages and x-broswer (at least FF and IE). The dictionaries are not that big (about ~30K), but if someone possess bigger and better dictionaries…
/hbi
December 14th, 2005 at 19:46
Slide 5 in AJAX-S presentation: http://robertnyman.com/ajax-s/
“There are thre different CSS classes for formatting increments:”
December 19th, 2005 at 11:41
Joel,
Thanks!
I’ve updated it now!
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