I have done a search for a thread on this topic and couldn't find one. Does anybody know which reference work is used as the basis for the idiosyncratic Cerberus that passes for a spell-checker? The vagaries of the checker have certainly generated a fair amount of amusement, but I wonder if anyone knows of superior alternatives which might be suggested for Anu's consideration. Perhaps even one that allows registered users to add to a custom dictionary for place names and other frequently used but unrecognised words. Just my 2˘
"Nationalism is an infantile disease, the measles of humanity" - Albert Einstein
To such a highly educated and refined clientele as the regulars of this board, a "creative" spell-checker is more of an asset than a merely "correct" one, at least from what I have seen so far: it has given rise to hilarious and serious exchanges. Orthography in English seems to me far less of an obstacle than certain idiomatic aspects of that language. To my knowledge, there is no electronic help for advanced problems of this sort.
I totally agree with you, wsieber (or Wu) - you have said what I was going to say, but in much better language.
Ta. (or Tab)
I think there is a learning curve with the spell-checker.
At first amazement and incredulity
followed by frustration and irritation
mellowing out to something akin to .... admiration.
The spell-checker is not just a mere functionary
designed to smooth the path of our verbal meanderings
it is .... art!
I'm looking for a good name along the lines of “The International Campaign to save Idiosyncratic Spell-checkers from Extinction” but I never was any good at acronyms.
?? United Front For Idiosyncratic Spell CHeckers
(sorry, haven't quite figured out how to colour the letters, so you'll have to make do with capitals - I'd add something at the bottom, but that would be an im pediment)
Save Our Lexiphanic English Crunching Idiomatic Spelling Monitor (SOLECISM)
(90% of the headwords in my wwftd dictionary are unknown to 100% of the spell-checkers in the known universe, which is why the disclaimer reads "you try spell-checking this stuff!")
Save Our Lexiphanic English Crunching Idiomatic Spelling Monitor (SOLECISM)
Don't you listen to him Dan, he's a devil, not a man! Just when I think that I could not be more awestruck by your eloquence, you prove me wrong. Thanks to all who replied to my original query, I guess I'm just lazy. My problem with any non-customised spell-checker is that after wading through dozens of false alerts in the same paragraph, I tend to miss valid ones. I know that's my fault, but it would be nice to have the option of adding frequently used words, especially nouns, to the spell-checker's repertoire. Oh well, never mind, I guess I will just have to take the time to read my posts properly and do my own spell checking. Quelle horreur!
"Nationalism is an infantile disease, the measles of humanity" - Albert Einstein
>I guess I will just have to take the time...
a long, long time ago, in a far off (perhaps parallel) galaxy, someone (Jeff, I think) suggested composing one's messages using one's own favorite editor/spellchecker and pasting them into AWAD's forlorn yet hapless editor.
this would seem to be efficient/effective/efficacious only to the extent that one is truly orthographically distraught.
this would seem to be efficient/effective/efficaciousPlease use those three words in the same sentence, purely for my entertainment.
"Nationalism is an infantile disease, the measles of humanity" - Albert Einstein
>Please use those three words in the same sentence...
well, in a way I did, just then -- but the only reason I did was that I can't keep the various shadings straight in my head.
>>Don't you listen to him Dan, he's a devil, not a man!
HEY !! Max, how in the world does a Kiwi know the song I learned on a dude ranch in Wyoming: Cool Water???
Ooh, I'll get no rest until you tell me!!!
HEY !! Max, how in the world does a Kiwi know the song I learned on a dude ranch in Wyoming: Cool Water???My father and stepmother had that song on some cassette or other that was inflicted upon the family during long holiday drives. As much as I dislike country music, it is catchy.
>>efficient/effective/efficacious
Please use those three words in the same sentence
It is efficacious to use efficient means to be effective.
Dear all,
Wouldn't you agree that this spell-checker pretty well checks that we remain under its spell?
> efficient/effective/efficacious
How about:
"Efficient communication requires effective use of the language in order to be truly efficacious in relaying ideas." Or is this tautological?
>>
Wouldn't you agree that this spell-checker pretty well checks that we remain under its spell?Not me, she said ungrammatically--I've never used it, but I
enjoy reading some of the funny results, esp. Avy/story.
But if you check, you'll find I'm under your spell!
I used to amuse myself on a slow day by running the names of my colleagues through Microsoft's spell checker. Sadly, Microsoft seem to have taken to incorporating common names in to their dictionary. No longer does my ex-boss Colin Windsor have the amusing pseudonym Colon Windsurfer.
i've always wondered what a "dude ranch" is exactly (DON'T tell me YCLIU)!!!
John,
This was the most fantastic place I've ever been!
A dude ranch is--uh oh, I am going to assume that you know what a ranch is--a real, often working ranch, where the
owners allow paying guests, who are the "dudes" (city slicker is another term), to stay and have the experience of life on a ranch. We got to go horseback riding twice a
day, took raft trips, had cook-outs, etc. If you had been
coming long enough that they knew you had adequate horsemanship, you could go out with the wranglers in the pre-dawn hours to round up the horses for the day's rides.
(The horses were turned out into the sagebrush overnight.)
The cookouts always were followed by someone in the know getting the owner to tell stories of past exploits, and then by an incredibly handsome, black-haired, blue-eyed, guitar-playing son of the owner giving us some ballads to sing along with. Then we'd mount up and ride home at dusk,
the sunset on the mountains already a memory.
Ah hah. I guess a few Auatralian properties are getting into that in a low key way, it sounds fun. Now is that where "dude" came from or did it already exist I wonder?
John,
Here's what the word-detective has to say:
For a lightweight word denoting attention to fashion and a devotion to "cool," "dude" has proven remarkably durable. It first showed up in the late 19th century, most probably as a variation on "dud," a Victorian slang term meaning "article of clothing" (still heard today as "duds"). The original dudes were fops and dandies, well-to-do young men who were known for their fancy style of dressing as well as their often dissolute "lifestyles."
A few years later, "dude" made its debut in the Western United States as a disparaging term for any city-dwelling visitor (also known as a "city slicker") to cowboy country. The taming of the West brought a flood of tourists from the East, and "dude ranches" quickly sprang up to give the visitors a taste of "cowpoke life."
In the 1930's, "dude" mutated a bit and came to be used as a general synonym for "guy" or "fellow," without its former connotations of dandyism, and seemed to be slowly fading away. The early 1960's surfer culture of Southern California, however, gave "dude" a shot in the arm, transforming the word into one of its basic units of linguistic exchange. There were no "guys" or "fellows" hanging ten -- only "dudes."
After cruising through the 1960's and 70's as a low-level slang term, "dude" hit the big time again in the 1980's courtesy of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and is still going strong today.
------------------------------------------------
My son practically lived TMNT, which I now realize
is probably why I use the term as much as I do!
Here is how to find the word-detective:
http://www.ipl.org/ref/QUE/PF/etymology.html
http://www.ipl.org/ref/QUE/PF/etymology.html
Cowabunga, dude! Thanks for the great link. I've noticed that links posted here never seem to be clickable, is there a reason for this?
max,
in order to make a link
hot, you have to use
markup, just like you do with colors, using "url" and "/url" instead of "red" and "/red". so sometimes we get lazy and just paste in the address.
http://members.aol.com/tsuwm/
tsuwm, my friend,
where are your CAPITALS???
william, tsuwm's capitals must be hibernating with yours.
tsuwm, in my case it wasn't laziness (I don't mind using colors), but ignorance. D'you mean to tell me that somehow my computer knows a link is a link, just because I put it in color? This confuses me, 'cause sometimes when I type links in e-mail, they magically come out in color, blue. Will any color work here?
jackie,
whoa there, dudette!
time to refer to the "markup in your posts" writeup:
<b> text </b> = Makes the given text bold.
<email> joe@blow.com </email> = Makes the given email address clickable.
<i> text </i> = Makes the given text italic.
<pre> text </pre> = Surrounds the given text with pre tags.
<quote> text </quote> = Surrounds the given text with blockquote and hr's. This markup tag is used for quoting a reply.
<url> link </url> = Makes the given url into a link.
in all of the above, change <> to square brackets -- that's what I meant by this works just like using colors!
>where are your CAPITALS???
william,
I guess I'm like you in that I only use them to make a POINT or to add emPHAsis -- now if i could only break myself of the habit of uppercasing that pesky personal pronoun....
-tsuwm
p.s. - I blame it all on being exposed to e.e. cummings at an impressionable age.
in all of the above, change <> to square brackets -- that's what I meant by this works just like using colors!
Thank you, my dear! Once again, I have leapt before doing my homework, in my usual lazy fashion.
I like how you put your emPHAsis on the wrong sylLAble!
I like how you put your emPHAsis on the wrong sylLAble!
When I was about eighteen, some friends and I started speaking to each other that way. It was quite fun, but surprisingly difficult to maintain over an extended conversation.
Thank you, tsuwm. I had read the markup instructions, and suspected that the reason may have been as you suggest, at least for some, but I did nor wish to malign anyone by saying so. I hope you enjoyed your Labour Day. That apparent non-sequitur is an attempted segue into: "how long after mailing a request will one start receiving your wwftd?"
In reply to:
"how long after mailing a request will one start receiving your wwftd?"
you should have received it today -- if not, tsu-me.
you should have received it today -- if not, tsu-me
Naturally, because I came to this board before checking my morning mail, the first thing I found upon leaving the board and getting my mail was your reply. I was tempted to post back here with something along the lines of, "Mother, Father, kindly disregard this letter." Thanks again. BTW, do you know what Tsunematsu is? That was the suggestion offered by the spell-checker for your "tsu-me" pun.
In reply to:
do you know what Tsunematsu is?
I'm guessing that's a person and not a thing -- I'm beginning to think that our s-c'er knows as many names as things. and shouldn't we come up with a name for the thing since we hold it in such low esteem?
I'm guessing that's a person and not a thing
You're probably right - perhaps one of the resident Nippophiles (or is that another word for an alcoholic?) could shed some light on the identity of Tsunematsu.
tsunematsu.
sorry, don't know. but it's almost certainly a name. matsu is really common in family names and place names. it means pine tree, so it could be a kind of pine.
i'll ask around, but bridget probably knows this one.
william, you overestimate me!
It isn't in my dictionary, but google will take you to Masatoshi Tsunematsu, who appears to be a rock singer / guitarist / artist / whatever.
Which reminds me - wrong thread but the Japanese 'idoru' meaning 'celebrity', 'one of those people we seem to have so many of these days who are famous chiefly for being famous', comes from the English 'idol'.
asked my manager and he agreed that it sounded like a historical figure, but didn't know anyone specific.
it's a surname and the tsune means "always".
other "matsu" names:
akamatsu - red pine
matsubayashi - pine forest
matsu takako - my favourite actress
matsushima - pine island (famous tourist area near sendai)
there are millions more. maybe someone who knows japanese history (i don't) can help with who this spell check person is. (i doubt it's a rock star!)
>help with who this spell check person is
or we could just assign the name to the spell check thing itself...
How 'bout calling the spellchecker "Enigma"?
How 'bout calling the spellchecker "Enigma"? Very apt! "Enigma" gets my vote.
...after the Enigma Cypher Machine, right?
or equally relevant - Elgar's "Enigma Variations"!
...after the Enigma Cypher Machine, right?
Yes, though the idea came from a friend. Having played the Elgar Variations, I can say that the music is much more
predictable than the spellchecker seems to be. And thanks, Max.
And it has a most apposite anagram:
gamine -- a small, attractively informal, mischievous, or elfish young woman.
Now don't all call at once!
no one seems to know tsunematsu, so maybe it IS the pop singer!
by the way, i forgot the most famous matsu of all:
matsuda
(mazda)
matsuda (mazda)Any relation to Ahura Mazda?