I've gathered you here to talk about something near and dear to my heart... TECHNOLOGY! For years I was very scared of it, afraid that the on light on my computer was actually an eye that could see me and unsuspectingly upload videos of me wanking to youtube. To this day I cover my computer with a towel if I am going to look at porn on the internet.

But no, I didn't call you here to talk about masturbation. You are reading this because I felt that you are now old enough to know about a little gadget called a "spell checker." It's pretty easy to use. Some people think that a spell checker isn't for them. "I hav purfect splling evar" says little billy unaware that right now a high school English teacher in Ohio just committed suicide because he realized that nothing he did mattered. Let me tell you that even the greatest authors of all time were terrible spellers. Lewis Carol's Jabberwocky was originally titled The Blabbermouth but since spell checkers had not been invented yet his editors let it slide because of the great debt that Carol owed to opium pushers. And if any of you have ever read the works of Shakespeare then you know how many words on each page are misspelled. That guy was a wreck. Luckily you don't need to suffer the same fate. For the lazy and (computer) illiterate amongst us, I have compiled a list of spell checkers.

IE
http://www.iespell.com/

Firefox
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:3

If you have other suggestions, feel free to add them here. Now go install them before I get some sort of brain hernia or something.

Industry, Science, and Technology!

Big men putting screwdrivers into things! Turning them, and ADJUSTING them!

- J

"Grammar is the diffenrence between "Helping your uncle, Jack, off his horse" and "Helping your uncle Jack off his horse""
-unknown

wilsonscrazybed:
To this day I cover my computer with a towel if I am going to look at porn on the internet.

Brilliant!

Also, thank you very much I hate making typos its irritating for me and other forum users.

Oh, the irony.

wilsonscrazybed:
I've gathered you here to talk about...

Your post contains five grammatical mistakes.

Seriously though, I think this a great idea! I also think that anybody making repeated and glaring spelling or grammatical errors should be banned for a day, so they can sit in the corner and think about what they've done to the English language.

Tango:

wilsonscrazybed:
To this day I cover my computer with a towel if I am going to look at porn on the internet.

Brilliant!

Also, thank you very much I hate making typos its irritating for me and other forum users.

Bugger, just noticed a few typos in my message...

"A woman, without her man, is nothing.
A woman: without her, man is nothing."

Just a funny grammar thing I found.

does it check four words that sound the same but mean different things oar is it the same as all the rest? That's wear eye have the most trouble in spell checking

Easykill:
"A woman, without her man, is nothing.
A woman: without her, man is nothing."

Just a funny grammar thing I found.

Punctuation turns ordinary speach into poetry. Huzzah for the intricacies of english!

I think that a lot of people in my classes use proper English in tests and projects and bugger all punctuation everywhere else. I didn't think it to be possible for one to just not use punctuation at all times.

Taylor Mali - "The Impotence of Proofreading"

defcon 1:
does it check four words that mean oar is it the same as all the rest? That's wear eye have the most trouble in spell checking

Point taken. Everyone here needs a spell-checker, and a liberal dose of common sense, and in rare cases an Oxford English dictionary. The irony of this post is that today I am sans spell-checker.

BBQ? I'm not familiar with that one... Hmmm....

I for one don't mind too much if a message has the odd typo or misspelling in it. After all, my keyboard is so old and nackered, it insists on adding a plus symbol whenever I+ use a capital 'i' or 'k', adds a 'u' whenever I type 'n' too quickly, and pastes whatever it was I last copied if I leave my finger on the Shift key for a second too long.

You have no idea how much of a trial it was to type that simple above paragraph. Anyways, the odd spelling mistake is fine by me, as we are all of us fallible, and it's a proven fact that computer screens muck up your ability to spot spelling mistakes. Or something.

Rape of grammar a la MGG, however, is enough to have me physically frothing at the mouth. And don't get me started on people who insist in typing 'u' and 'ur', instead of 'you' and 'your' (along with m8, l8r, and all that). This isn't a mobile phone, it's a computer. You're not getting charged by the letter, so try and make your sentences at least readable.

there is a few issues here

1. no child left behind
2. a relaxing on focus on spelling and grammar
3. no child left behind
4. new parents and their precious little snowflakes
5. lack of kids reading and watching tv

on a side note firefox does have a spell checker albeit an american-english one so stuff like colour, neighbour, flavour and so forth aren't picked up correctly. that isn't bad english, it's just an evolution of the language.

now as for the your and you're thing, that's REALLY annoying and i still get nailed with it, tho in my head i always go say "you are" or your to make sure i'm saying the right thing. some of the short form comes not from sms but old irc and bbs days and predates sms msg'n

Yeah! Woo! English! Punctuation! Does Japanese have a semicolon? Hell no! Does Korean have a dash? Hell no! ENGLISH FOREVER WOOOO YEAH

Hey Joe:

wilsonscrazybed:
I've gathered you here to talk about...

Your post contains five grammatical mistakes.

Seriously though, I think this a great idea! I also think that anybody making repeated and glaring spelling or grammatical errors should be banned for a day, so they can sit in the corner and think about what they've done to the English language.

I would go more for a three strikes rule. The first is a one day ban, as in: I r teh greatast tiper evar. One day ban.

Repeated abuses of this would result in harsher penalties. I actually thought about making a rude comment about a post I read today that was a whole paragraph, but with absolutely zero punctuation. Not even a final period. Just one paragraph long run-on sentence. My head started hurting trying to understand it. Instead I closed the page and was polite about it. Seriously, it bothers me on a personal level though. Maybe because I am an english major, and proper spelling has always been important and easy to me. *Climbs off his high horse* It just makes reading and understanding your thoughts easier. I have dismissed intelligent ideas because the person making them public couldn't put a cogent sentence together and make himself understood.

Darth Mobius:
I would go more for a three strikes rule. The first is a one day ban, as in: I r teh greatast tiper evar. One day ban.

I second the motion.

I'd also suggest getting rid of the post count, as most idiots like to post solely for the sake of upping that number. It means nothing to people who contribute thoughtfully to this site... so why have it?

I remember a time when the Escapist was in its infancy and only the obscure (well spoken citizens) contributed. Then some dude named Yahtzee came here and took a big sarcastic shit over everything and the grammatically impaired flies have never left. ;-)

Echolocating:

Darth Mobius:
I would go more for a three strikes rule. The first is a one day ban, as in: I r teh greatast tiper evar. One day ban.

I second the motion.

I'd also suggest getting rid of the post count, as most idiots like to post solely for the sake of upping that number. It means nothing to people who contribute thoughtfully to this site... so why have it?

I remember a time when the Escapist was in its infancy and only the obscure (well spoken citizens) contributed. Then some dude named Yahtzee came here and took a big sarcastic shit over everything and the grammatically impaired flies have never left. ;-)

HEY! I manage to do both. Usually. Occasionally I have an inane or useless comment, but those are only for things that I want to agree with, that have already been posted... I just want to see what all the ranks are. And occasionally I will have an intellectual conversation with someone who is willing to do the same. Anyway, you can do away with that or not... I post whored for the first week, and now I just check in two or three times a week. Mainly to keep abreast of articles I have already posted in to either learn new things, or further educate people who don't have the knowledge I do.

This isn't a major problem, I try to use grammar to the best of my ability, I use the spell check add on, i've used it for a while. As long as the post is at least legible.
I don't find that miss used words such as someone using "There" to indicate ownership isn't a major problem, instead of using "their".
It's frustrating when people tyop leik thz, u kno wat i mean dnt u, its anoyin aint it
(It makes me feel dirty typing like that, how can people actually write like that is beyond me.)

Yeah.. I'm not really seeing the big deal. I believe a good use of the phrase "Making a mountain out of a mole hill" could be used here.

This wasn't intended to be a bash the "bad grammar people." There's a lot of people here who's native language isn't English. Shall we banish all of them? How about anyone who didn't finish high school? Ban young and underprivileged? All I am saying is that downloading a spell-checker is easy enough that if you don't you're just being lazy.

Does anyone know of a good one for Opera, I followed the instructions for the one they recomended but it dident seem to work.

So far I have used an online dictionary when in doubt and OpenOffice for longer posts but a built in spellchecker could be great.

Thank you Wilcons, this spell checker will be helpful...

...when I type something.

Sammyfreak, I accidentally installed the Yahoo! toolbar on my laptop, and use the spell checker frequently... Again, the irony is that I don't have wireless for my laptop so I have to use my mom's computer, which is sans spell checker...

Old but whatever

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea,
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight for it two say,
Weather eye and wring oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long,
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should bee proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw's are knot aloud.

Eye have run this poem threw it
Your sure reel glad two no,
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

wilsonscrazybed:
This wasn't intended to be a bash the "bad grammar people." There's a lot of people here who's native language isn't English. Shall we banish all of them? How about anyone who didn't finish high school? Ban young and underprivileged? All I am saying is that downloading a spell-checker is easy enough that if you don't you're just being lazy.

That's "whose", not "who's". Sorry.

Anarchemitis:

Isn't technology great?

Is there anything that Calvin & Hobbes can't make fun of... My favorite comic ever... I wish he would release another book....

Use a mac kiddies.

Spellchecker built right in.

That and its hard to kill a mac even if you try.

Hell, for kicks one day went out and downloaded about 40 viruses, they sit in a folder on my desktop doing nothing.

Ultra Joe, do I really need to give you my Mac is the devil speech again?

Mmm yeah, online I pretty much rely on my Firefox spell checker, but when I'm writing papers for school, all the programs that I use have a built in red squiggly line. Blech. I can't even talk to half the people I used to talk to on AIM anymore bcuz they talk lyk dis.

Darth Mobius:
Ultra Joe, do I really need to give you my Mac is the devil speech again?

No, because i can force quit you.

Oh the irony, a valid feature of the Macintosh, and a cunning play on your love of the Star Wars universe.

"I force push you"
"I force quit you"
"Damn"

And thats why i win. Perfectly spelled by the way.