Damned Spellchecker

[quelquod]

Just been roasted mildly on another board because my iPad seemingly can’t differentiate between its and it’s and inserted unnoticed an unwanted apostrophe. Why can’t spellcheckers recognise grammatical context? I’d have thought that processors are easily fast enough to keep with normal typing speeds.

And some of the corrections of the occasional missed letter in a word are simply astonishing. On the upside, it does seem able correct quite substantial mangling of fairly common words. Incomprehensible.

[bungeejumper]

Spill chuckers, we call them in my trade. As long as the word they come up with is a bona fide sequence of letters, they'll use it, and it'll be up to you to soot the error before you hot sand.

These errors predated spill chuckers, however. The story goes that the London Times reported on a royal visit to the Menai Bridge, during which the band played the national anthem and the crowds cheered as Queen Victoria pissed graciously over the bridge. Probably apocryphal (boo hiss), but no less amusing for that. In the days before computer setting, hot metal typographers would often try it on and see what they could get away with.

BJ

[Howyoudoin]

[Rhyd6]

HYD you ARE the reincarnation of Terry Pratchett and I claim my five pounds

R6