Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

« RFI: Does DVI matter? || Back to Blog | The Pitch »

September 18, 2004

Trademark violations are not spelling errors

Microsoft Word corrects many of my typos and misspellings as I type. I'm not sure exactly how I turned it on, how to turn it off, or where the list of errors is maintained, but it's pretty helpful.

...Except that it corrects my trademark violations. For example, if I type "laundromat," it goes tut-tut and changes it to "Laundromat." I violate trademarks with pride and I don't want to be in a culture war with my word processor. Besides, is Microsoft going to issue a patch so it slaps a trademark on "That's hot" now that Paris Hilton has trademarked it?

(Pssst, Paris, I own "You're a waste of an inheritance." Want to buy it from me?)

Posted by D. Weinberger at September 18, 2004 10:31 PM


Comments

There are three places to turn off/on the annoying "auto" functions:
- Word --> preferences menu (uncheck boxes under several tabs, but esp. editing/spelling/grammar
- format menu --> AutoFormat (three tabs-worth)
- tools menu --> AutoSummarize/AutoCorrect

Of course, we mere peons are not capable of making such decisions on our own, just as we need help figuring out if we're writing a letter... [Oh, thanks -- I didn't realize I was writing ______.]

Posted by: w | September 19, 2004 01:32 PM


Spellchecks are great for catching typos, but look out for "elegant errors" -- see:

Why not just use the spellchecker?

It would be nice if MS Word would use an up-to-date dictionary as well.

BTW you can always join The Atlantic's Word Police:

Word Police Academy

Posted by: w | September 19, 2004 02:01 PM


What I'm looking for is a quick and easy way to spell-check comments written in a blog.

Posted by: daniel luke | September 20, 2004 01:21 AM


Post a comment

Guidelines for Commenting

Basically, you can say what you want. (Click here for the fine print.)

If you haven't left a comment here before, your comment may be put into a queue for me to approve. Sorry for the delay. Blame the damn spammers.