General TE tips

[SadieKate]

Has anyone had "problems" with the spell checker? It appears to get creative with apostrophes. Doesn't seem to get the difference between the plural, the possessive or the contractive. Is it just the grouchy grammar grinch getting grumpy?

[maillotpois]

There's a spell checker?

[SadieKate]

Yes, I had to download it. Someone called our attention to it somewhere, somehow. Who was it and where? Trek420 prolly knows.

[Dianyla]

There's a spell checker?

There's a spellchecker in some web browsers, but not in the forums software.

[snapdragen]

There's a spell checker?

See up at the top of the Reply to Thread box, in the right hand corner? There's a little check mark with ABC - spell checker. It's for IE only though. Firefox has one too, but I don't know the name.

Now if someone would invent an internet grammar checker, Sadie could rest.....

[SadieKate]

Hey, I know who my compatriots are.

[Lise]

Has anyone had "problems" with the spell checker? It appears to get creative with apostrophes. Doesn't seem to get the difference between the plural, the possessive or the contractive. Is it just the grouchy grammar grinch getting grumpy?

SK--people don't know the difference between the plural, possessive, or contractive! People program machines... My favorite misuse of the apostrophe to date (and I've been collecting them for over 30 years), is the sign in a window in my neighborhood, advertising the following service: Re'sume's. Oh, the irony.

I appreciate the presence of another GGG! Have you seen this? http://angryflower.com/aposter.html My personal favorite. I found my 6 year old nephew studying the poster on the side of my frig one day. I hope I've saved one child from lawless apostrophe abuse! L.

[SadieKate]

lawless apostrophe abuse

That's so good I changed my signature line.

"Re'sume's" - that's very unique.

I'm adding you to my compatriot list.

[maillotpois]

Oh my gosh that poster is excellent!! I get super grouchy about apostrophe abuse also. I specifically hate when people use them to pluralize - even for something like RVs, VCRs, etc. Just because it's all caps doesn't mean it's special. Then there's the whole it's/its debacle - and I don't mean the tasty ice cream sandwich made locally in the Bay Area....

Now that's not to say I am not guilty of my fair share of typos. (I never learned how to type correctly, so I type with about 3 fingers and tend to go very fast but sometimes make mistakes. But throwing in gratuitous apostrohpes won't be the sort of mistake I usually make...)

[bikerz]

All grammar grinches need to read the book "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves!" (It's on my stack...)

There was a Stouffers poster in Bart with a misplaced comma in the copy that I had to look at EVERY DAY and it drove me INSANE! Finally it was replaced with one of those ubiquitous Ipod posters instead...

[DrBee]

I like the "incorrect rule #3" - add one whenever you want. That seems to happen waaaaayyyyy too often. I see this a lot when I'm reviewing manuscripts. Drives me nuts!

[Bad JuJu]

I teach English composition to college freshman, and if you think YOU'VE seen apostrophe abuse...in the words of an old popular song, "you ain't seen nothin', yet." Drives me absolutely freakin' nuts.

And hey, bikerz, I love Eats, Shoots, and Leaves!

Anybody shop at Lands' End? They admitted a few years ago that their apostrophe is incorrect, but they say they're keeping it that way to remind them of their fallibility--right, and to avoid having to correct all their corporate letterhead stuff, too.

[SadieKate]

In college, I typed papers for money (yeah, a real typewriter and I learned on a manual). I finally told a Business Management major, a steady customer, that I was going to stop correcting his special version of the word "management" if he didn't figure it out. Amazingly, the next paper was perfectly spelled.

[bikerz]

My favorite misuse of the apostrophe to date (and I've been collecting them for over 30 years), is the sign in a window in my neighborhood, advertising the following service: Re'sume's. Oh, the irony.

Hey Lise - have you ever read the book Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman? She has a really hilarious essay in there about her family (grammar grinches one and all!) who have a family sport of collecting published grammer errors. That's a really great little book! (She also wrote the wonderful The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, which was mentioned on a another thread here recently.)

(Can anyone tell I'd rather be doing something besides working right now?)

[Lise]

I insistantly misspelled Thucydides in a history paper in college. The instructor got so mad that he circled each instance in red, and wrote the correct spelling in caps across the title page. Don't believe I've had cause to write the name again until today, 27 years later, but you'd best believe I checked the spelling before posting! L.