Trademark violations are not spelling errors
Posted on:: September 18th, 2004
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?)
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 ______.]
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
What I’m looking for is a quick and easy way to spell-check comments written in a blog.