Study Advice Service
Student Support Services
SPELLCHECKERS
AND
COMMONLY CONFUSED WORDS
Author: Peter Wilson
English Spelling is notoriously illogical and hard to learn. If you are bad at spelling, the best answer is to
persevere. Learn the spelling of the words you need – and use them. In their correct forms…
There is a leaflet available from Study Advice Service on Homophones (on the web at
www.hull.ac.uk/studyadvice). This deals with the most basic of common errors.
If you are really bothered by any of the principles of spelling, come to the Study Advice Service desk on
the Hull campus and talk about it with one of the Academic Writing tutors, or make an appointment to
see the Study Advice Service tutor on the Scarborough campus.
However, the computer age has brought the wonderful Spellchecker tool. Won’t this do the job for
you?
NO!
A spellchecker is a wonderful tool. But it must be used with caution. Above all, it must be used WITH
INTELLIGENCE. One weakness of computers is that they are not as clever as you. They can do some
things better – many things much faster – but they do not understand any human language.
A spellchecker is essentially a list of words that are correctly spelled. The computer takes each word
that you write and then looks up its list to see if that word exists. So if you mis-type a word (e.g. three
when you meant to put there), the machine will ask “Is there such a word as ‘three’?” As the answer is
‘yes’, it will move on to the next word. It is not clever enough to think, “Oh, that should be ‘there’.
Change it.”
As you have made an error, and it remains uncorrected, the machine has NOT helped you. You – the
human – still have to make your own decisions about right or wrong. That is why the spellchecker
dialogue box offers you a choice between ‘Change’ and ‘Ignore’. So think before you make it.
There is no substitute fro proof-reading.
Sorry: Three is no substitute for proof-reading
Sorry, again. THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR PROOF-READING
When you proof-read, be aware that you will do it best with a fresh eye. It is very easy to read what
you meant to say, not what you actually did say. Some suggestions for helping your eye to be fresh
include:
•
Print out your draft so that you read it on paper instead of on screen yet again.
•
Leave your work, when you have finished writing it, for 24 hours, or at least overnight, before you
begin to proof-read it.
Web: www.hull.ac.uk/studyadvice
Email: [email protected]
Tel:
01482 466199
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•
Read your writing aloud (to yourself). It is amazing what you see when you hear it!
•
Read your text sentence by sentence in reverse order – read the last sentence first, then the
second last and so on.
•
Proof-read your friend’s or classmate’s essay – and get her or him to check yours. It will be easier
to spot mistakes in a text that is new to you. (But choose a good friend!)
You should be aware of word pairs that can go wrong – nouns ending in -ies can be mis-typed as
verbs ending in -ise (e.g. apologies
apologise). The ending -ion can become in; the word in
can become the word ion (a term from Science).
Often the spellchecker will be defeated if an accidental typing error produces a wrong word that
nevertheless exists, but differs from the word you meant by only one letter. Your friend, I trust, is not a
fiend, nor even a fried. (For some reason, though I have often seen the first of these mistakes, I do
not remember ever having seen the second. But it is just as possible, theoretically.)
Be careful with spaces as well as letters. Note that throughout ≠ through out, and into ≠ in to, nor
does on to = onto.
The table shows some of the words which can be confused that Study Advice Service tutors often see many in our own work; many in the work of our clients.
a
access
as
assess
at
ascent
affect
affected
effect
allowed
aloud
any
assistance
nay
assistant
many
assistants
choose
chose
chosen
complaint
compliant
complement
compliment
continual
continues
continuous
country
decent
county
descend
countries
descent
delete
delate
dilate
deprecate
discreet
depreciate
discrete
distinguish
extinguish
earl
evince
early
evoke
excise
exercise
excite
exit
exciting
extant
extent
extend
font
fount
front
for
fro
form
from
accent
assent
choice
counties
dissent
exiting
2
exist
existing
found
founded
friend
fiend
fried
late
later
latter
loose
lose
loosed
loosen
manage
manager
mange
manger
past
passed
pendant
pedant
persecute
prosecute
persecution
prosecution
posse
posses
possess
possesses
practice
practise
prescribe
proscribe
prescription
proscription
principal
principle
propose
purpose
pubic
public
quiet
quite
recent
resent
present
pre-set
stationary
stationery
stayed
strayed
straight
strait
test
text
than
that
then
these
theses
thesis
to
top
trail
trial
which
witch
loss
lost
staid
Each computer user will make her or his own characteristic typing mistakes (or typos, informal way
of saying the academic typographical errors). One that I make often is to type an extra s when I
think I have just typed a, so that ‘and’, for example, comes out as ‘asnd’. The spell-checker often
suggests ‘sand’ for this. (Sometimes I just type ‘sand’, and the machine accepts this. In both cases, I
am wrong. I hardly every mean to use the word ‘sand’.)
Learn to watch out for your own characteristic errors.
If you use Microsoft’s ‘AutoCorrect’ tool, you can use it to correct your own common errors more
efficiently. (It can be a very annoying feature if you are trying to include inaccuracies in your text - as I
am in this document!) For further guidance see a good Word manual.
All web addresses in this leaflet were correct at the time of publication.
The information in this leaflet can be made available in an alternative
format on request. Telephone 01482 466199.
©
11/2007
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