Flag-rare-words feature needed | |||||||||||||||||
Currently the user has the ability to add words to a word-processor's dictionary, to make it stop flagging words that are unfamiliar to it. Thinking symmetrically, there should be a feature to "remove" words from its dictionary, to make it start flagging them. Why would this be useful? Because there are certain rare words that we (virtually) never use, but that are similar in spelling to words we do use and which are embarrassing when we accidentally type them in. An example is “manger,” which 99.99% of the time is a misspelling of “manager.” Or “fro”: usually a misspelling of “for.” Or “whey” for “why.” Word processors could flag such items with a wavy orange underline, if users activated the feature. And they could provide users with a starter list of 1000 (say) rare-and-easy-to-mix-up rare words. Users could then add or delete items to and from the rare-word dictionary. This would require little programming effort and would be a crowd-pleaser. Microsoft needs a little of that.
Roger Knights, May 25 2008
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Would auto-correct help?
Auto-correct would be risky, and it should be up to each user to decide, after reviewing the vendor's list of rare words, whether to add each one as an item in his auto-correct table as well. I suggest the software vendor should automate the process and step the user through the table, letting him flag each entry as an auto-correct item or not with a simple yes/no click.
The reason it would be risky to use auto-correct is that on rare occasions a user might want to use one of those words deliberately, and it would make him look silly if his deliberate use of "manger," for instance, got silently replaced by "manager." Therefore, any "rare word" that is on the auto-correct list should not be corrected silently, the way the other auto-correct items are. Its auto-correction should be accompanied by a funny noise and/or a pop-up box asking if the correction is really wanted. Or at least the user should be given an option to have this noise and pop-up appear, by clicking Yes or No on something like "Warn before auto-correcting?" -- and Warn should be the default.
Although it would be less work, the software vendor should not assume that the user wants rare words to be auto-corrected--each word should be individually approved by the user.