Spell Check is Not Your Friend

Can you find all 14 writing mistakes?

August 3, 2009 | Posted in: General Writing, Spell Check is Not Your Friend | Tags: business writing, copywriting, editing, editing emails, editing tips, grammar, proofreading, proper usage, spell check, spell checker, spellcheck, spelling, usage, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, writing tips |

Here are some basic mistakes that do not get flagged by a spell checker. Can you spot all the errors?

I consider people talking loudly on there cell phones in public to be offense of. They should of taken care of business at home or at there work sight. Do they have more rite to be herd in public then others?

I mite just go up to a loud cell talker and say, “Are thoughts could be as important as yours. We cant here them because your so loud. You deserve an Olympic mettle for rudeness!”

There are 14 words used mistakenly in context. Did you find this type of writing to be a turnoff? One friend told us, “When I read something like this, I die a little inside.”

As we’ve said before: you must review and edit everything you write.

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Wolverine would like to compliment you on your use of the term “complement”

June 27, 2009 | Posted in: General Writing, Spell Check is Not Your Friend | Tags: grammar, homophone, homophones, Logan, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, Wolverine, writing tips, X-Men |

Here’s a quick writing tip along the lines of last week’s discreet/discrete posting. We often see compliment and complement switched up, most recently in a review of the new X-Men Origins: Wolverine video game on the IGN website. (Okay, so the review was published April 30. We’re behind in our reading.)

We note this not only to remind you that even great sites such as IGN can occasionally get confused about grammar, but as a trick to include a photo of Wolverine in this post. (Hey, you try to come up with a cool image that represents homophone confusion.)

We’d like to believe everyone knows what a compliment is: to say something nice to someone. Compliment can be a noun or verb. Here’s a fine way to compliment Wolverine:

“Gee, Wolverine, what wonderfully shiny claws you have. To you get them professionally polished?”

Meanwhile, complement, in this usage, is something that, when added to another quality, makes something complete or whole:

“Wolverine, your unbridled aggression is the perfect complement to Cyclops’ cool reserve on the X-Men team.”

Complement can also mean the quantity or number needed to make something whole: “The addition of Wolverine gave the X-Men a full complement of mutant superheroes.”

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Spell check is not your friend: discreet vs. discrete

June 20, 2009 | Posted in: General Writing, Spell Check is Not Your Friend | Tags: business writing, editing, editing tips, grammar, proofreading, spell check, spellcheck, We Write For You, wewriteforyou.com, Word, writing, writing tips |

Here’s the first appearance of another new segment at the wewriteforyou.com blog: Spell check is not your friend.

Sure, spell check can be a useful utility. But it is not necessarily your friend. Because as soon as you start to rely too much on your spell checker, it will toss you under the bus.

That’s because spell checkers do a fine job of recognizing words from non-words, but they’re still a long way (mostly) from knowing whether you’re using the right word.

Today’s case in point: the homophones discreet and discrete. With growing regularity, we’re seeing writers using discrete when they mean to use discreet. (We almost never see it the other way around.)

Discreet means “prudent” or “tactful” — many people also use it to mean “subtle,” which we suppose is okay. Discrete, however, means “distinct or “separate.” For example… (more…)

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