Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Using the Microsoft English Dictionaries

In Australia and New Zealand we get the Australian version of Microsoft Office. That’s both a bad thing and a good thing. It’s bad because we have to pay a fortune for our version of the software, and we can only look at our American counterparts with envy.

It’s good because the Australian version is also the best version - at least if you happen to live in Australia or New Zealand. It includes not only the English (US) and International English (UK) dictionaries, but also English (Australia).

The English (Australia) dictionary contains every postcode in Australia (and also possibly New Zealand) and I really do mean ‘every’. Every city, every town, every hamlet or one-horse town, every suburb of every city and every suburb of every town that has a postcode. They are all in the dictionary and they are all available to the spell-checking function.

English (Australia) also includes place names for America and the UK, of course, although perhaps the lists are not quite so comprehensive as the Australian list.

Get Rid of Those Junky Spelling Corrections!
Having more than one Microsoft English dictionary can be useful in another way as well. If you have ever read an Australian online forum or discussion group, you will be aware that Australia has a lot of shocking spellers.

If Microsoft is anything to go by, however, then America must be full of people whose spelling is even worse than ours! Oh my goodness, just check out the list of the default spelling errors in AutoCorrect compiled by Microsoft. Most of the spelling mistakes are totally bizarre.

Since I’m not aware that American schools are any worse than Australian schools, I have to conclude that the Microsoft Corporation is full of crazy spellers and leave it at that.

The rest of America, along with the rest of the world, would be well advised to get rid of most of the rubbish that Microsoft dumps into AutoCorrect. All it does is clog up the system. And that’s where the different dictionaries come in.

Chose One Dictionary for Your Personal AutoCorrect List
If you live in America you can, if you wish, hang onto all that junky spelling in the .acl file attached to the International English language, and completely clean out the AutoCorrect list attached to the US language dictionary of all entries except those that cover the spelling errors that you commonly make, or the entries that you suspect that you will have difficulty spelling. Make a backup of your MSO<number>.acl files before you start, just in case you change your mind.

In England, Australia, and New Zealand it’s vice versa. We keep all the junky AutoCorrect entries attached to the US language dictionary and also on backup disks, and thoroughly clean out the list attached to our own dictionary, so that we end up with a lean, mean and totally efficient AutoCorrect list ready for our own entries. The quickest way to do this is via the AutoCorrect.dot backup tool if you have one of the earlier versions of Office (ie prior to 2007). That way, you can clean out all the crap in a minute or two before you reimport the list back into Office. If you are using Office 2007, check out Jay Freeman's AutoCorrect.dotm template (see earlier blog for link).

By doing this, you will delete perhaps thousands of entries, the majority of which you would never have used.

Your Personal Spell Checker
You will still be wanting Word to check your spelling but you can add your common typos to AutoCorrect as you make them. Go into Tools/Options/Spelling and Grammar, and make sure that you have ticked the boxes for ‘Check spelling as you type’, ‘Always suggest corrections’, and ‘Suggest from main dictionary only’. Then if you do make a spelling error that Microsoft doesn't automatically correct from your language dictionary, you will be prompted and given the opportunity to add it to your AutoCorrect list. And yes, you’ll very quickly add misspelt words like teh for the, adn for and, alos for also - plus some regular pearlers of your own.

Bad Spelling: Is AutoCorrect Really to Blame?
In my view, if young people are bad spellers then there is a flaw in their schooling. No school computer should have the AutoCorrect and spell-checking features activated until children are well into high school. There’s not a lot that teachers can do about the home computer, however, apart from insisting on handwritten assignments in at least primary school. That said, a hell of a lot of older people (like me) will admit that we, too, find the AutoCorrect and spell-checking features very convenient for automatic spelling correction. It’s not entirely a generational thing.

No comments: