Author Topic: Browser Spell Checkers  (Read 9241 times)

hiccup

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English not being my mothers tongue, I often have to rely on automated spelling corrections.
That's very helpful indeed, but I very often encounter spelling correction suggestions that I can't figure out why they would be wrong.
I think I am inclined to use English-English vs. American-English, so I get it that the forum engine thinks I am wrong when I write 'organise'.
Still annoying, but I get it.

But on a frequent interval I am getting 'reprimanded' on words I can't figure out why they would be 'wrong'.
A google search usually shows them being correct indeed.

I never cared to report this before, but tonight's the night ;-)
One specific example I encountered tonight:
unenjoyable
I had doubts on it because of the way it looks myself, but google gives me more than 8 million hits for it.
So I am guessing it is correct.
This is just one example, but this is happening frequently.

Could it be there is something outdated or wrong with the grammar correction engine of the forum?
Is it just me encountering and observing this?

psychoadept

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But on a frequent interval I am getting 'reprimanded' on words I can't figure out why they would be 'wrong'.
A google search usually shows them being correct indeed.

I think, as in your example, there are many words with prefixes or suffixes that are valid in English grammar but weren't considered by whoever created the spell checker. (Is it the forum doing the spell checking or your browser?)

When I first started using a swipe keyboard on my phone, I had to manually add -LY to a lot of words. Apparently they forgot to account for adverbs when they made that dictionary.
Last Edit: July 29, 2021, 11:15:40 PM by psychoadept
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phred

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Could it be there is something outdated or wrong with the grammar correction engine of the forum?
Is it just me encountering and observing this?
I may quite possibly be wrong, but SMF does not have a spell checker. The spell checker when using the Internet is typically from within the browser. Firefox has one. If you're using FF, you might want to take a look at this https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-use-firefox-spell-checker which shows how to add or switch dictionaries  and some other helpful hints.
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hiccup

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I may quite possibly be wrong, but SMF does not have a spell checker. The spell checker when using the Internet is typically from within the browser. Firefox has one.
I found that SMF has a spelling checking feature available (I believe it's called pspell), but it has to be activated/installed, and it looks like it hasn't for our forum.

It looks like indeed my Firefox was doing the spelling checking.
I have changed it's language to En-En (a bit strange that it by default doesn't use the language as set in Windows), and now I can indeed type 'organise' without being reprimanded ;-)
And I can now also type 'unenjoyable' without getting a red marker. (is that an English-English word, and not so much an English-American word?)

I see there's also a more extensive spelling/grammar addon for Firefox available. Perhaps I'll try that one later on.

Thanks guys!

phred

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"Unenjoyable" gets red-flagged for me in Firefox (here on the forum) but I haven't tried it elsewhere. Yet it appears in both the Oxford English and the Merriam-Webster dictionaries. Which any self-respecting editor/proof-reader in the US would use.

Now it gets weird. (And drifting off-topic.) When I disable spell checking in Firefox, "unenjoyable" still gets red-flagged here on the forum and anywhere else while using Firefox and typing in a text box.
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hiccup

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So you have unchecked 'check your spelling as you type' in Firefox, but you still get corrections when typing a message?
Strange indeed, I don't.
Have you restarted FF completely after changing that setting?

phred

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So you have unchecked 'check your spelling as you type' in Firefox, but you still get corrections when typing a message?
Correct.

Quote
Strange indeed, I don't.
Have you restarted FF completely after changing that setting?
With today's modern FF, one doesn't "need" to restart after making changes to settings. But apparently this is one change where it's needed. I hadn't restarted it before, but just did and it is no longer unenjoyable.  <g>
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phred

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With today's modern FF, one doesn't "need" to restart after making changes to settings. But apparently this is one change where it's needed. I hadn't restarted it before, but just did and it is no longer unenjoyable.  <g>
Well, apparently not. "Unenjoyable" is once again being flagged by FF as incorrect. The only time FF doesn't flag it is if I disable FF's spell checker. MS Word does not flag it. As previously stated Oxford English and Meriann-Webster show it as correct in US English.

I found two FF spell checker extensions. Grammerly is free but you need to register and it looks like they send data back to their server. It's possible to turn it off, but I don't know if it limits results. I didn't get that far as I wasn't going to register. The other extension is Language Tool but it's slow and not the greatest UI.

If you find something that you like that's not one of those two, please let me know.
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hiccup

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I must say I am a bit impressed by the LanguageTool plugin.

It seems to work quite well (running a quote of yours through it ;-)


It also gets generally favourable reviews.
The only drawback I can see using it is that it is probably a little bit overkill for the purpose of posting forum messages, resulting in lots of suggestions that are probably justified but not that important for a forum post.
I'm going to leave it on for a while, and see if it will start to bother me at a certain moment.

I noticed there is also some Firefox dictionary repository:
https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/firefox/language-tools/
But those files could well be identical to what you get when you customise the preferences settings in FF.
Not sure.

edit,
What seems a bit annoying about LanguageTools is that it still alerts me on something like 'organise'.
I have set LT to British English, but e.g. 'organise' still gets flagged, suggesting 'organize' but also says that 'organise' is not wrong.
I don't need alerts like that…
Last Edit: August 05, 2021, 10:41:13 AM by hiccup

phred

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What seems a bit annoying about LanguageTools is that it still alerts me on something like 'organise'.
I'll let you run with it for a few days before I reinstall it. I didn't look too carefully so maybe you can tell me if there's a way to disable the grammar checking?

I'm also going to split this into its own thread in the Beyond MB section.
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hiccup

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I'll let you run with it for a few days before I reinstall it.
You only gave me a few days, so here's me reporting already a bit early.
I must say I find it's working quite good, but not great.
In the previous sentence I deliberately wrote it's instead of its, and LT didn't move a muscle.
But it continuously tells you, to add commas, even where, it would seriously, mess up the flow, of a sentence.
(makes me sound like Christopher Walken?)

As a non-English speaker, I still think I will keep it activated for a while since it alerts me to quite a few common mistakes I am still making.
But it might become annoying, and I would understand it if a native English speaker would get fed up with it after only a few days.

And to answer a question that I think you asked: No, far as I know you cannot disable grammar correction and only have lexicon correction.
A more fine-grained configuration option would be very welcome indeed, and would probably elevate this tool from mediocre to good.

So in the meantime, other suggestion form forum users would be welcome…
hmm, I mistyped "from" in the previous sentence. Still all's quite on the Western Front according to LanguageTool

edit
Damn you, LanguageTool:
It's 'quiet on the Western Front', not 'quite on the Western Front'. You should have helped me instead of hanging me out to dry looking like a hobo.
Am I expecting too much?
Last Edit: August 04, 2021, 10:40:46 PM by hiccup

phred

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Thanks for the review, hiccup.

Based on what your experience has been so far, I'm still going to lie low. I really don't need, something, telling me when, to add commas. If only the grammar module could be disabled I might be more likely to try it.

I do recall a spull chucker called Aspell. I think used it in the early days of Notepad++ (before a dictionary was included.) It may still be the spell checker that's used by Notepad++ but now integrated into the application. I have downloaded it and will see if it works with Windows overall, or just with certain apps. Perhaps it will work with browsers without any fiddling.  I will try to get it set up and tested later today. http://aspell.net/

EDIT: Note that the available English dictionary unpacks to include many versions: Austrailian, British Isle, Canadian, and variants thereof.
Last Edit: August 05, 2021, 12:25:58 PM by phred
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Música

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English is not my mother tongue (vs. "mothers tongue"  ;) ) either,  though I spell very well -better than most for whom it is. (That was/will be my only "correction" on this thread and forum.) I use Edge and Vivaldi. Edge does have several checking extensions at the Microsoft Store, and Vivaldi allows Chrome extensions -pardon the contradiction,; so, it must have that option as well. Haven't tried, nor heard anything about any option, but they may be useful. Good luck and enjoy your research, though I've never noted spelling problems throughout your "Heroic" MB tradition.