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Is it spellchecker or spell checker? - Australian spelling
Have you ever typed spellchecker into a document and found it's marked as an
incorrect spelling. You're then offered the suggestion spell checker as
two words, which most people would then accept as the correct spelling.
In Australia spellchecker is a single word, and in America, it would be
hyphenated. The problem is the word processing software we use doesn't know
about the word spellchecker and thus marks it as an error. When an error
is found in a single word, the spellchecker will try various substitutions,
with one being to insert a space. If by inserting a space two correct words are
found, the spellchecker then returns the two words as a suggestion. In the case
of spellchecker, the suggestion spell checker is wrong and causes
people to create a spelling error in their document.
Spellcheckers are a great writing aid, but sometimes we need to keep in mind they aren't
perfect.
Kelvin Eldridge
www.Australian-Dictionary.com.au
The preferred Australian English spelling.
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