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I've been using Google Docs for composition lately, because it is so easily shared and it is the most streamlined word processor I have (on different machines I have an old version of word perfect, a new version of open office, and a new version of word, as well as kingsoft which is for the Nexus). No goddamned ribbon! The only thing I miss is reveal codes from word perfect and I don't use it as much as I used to anyway. Another nice thing about Google Docs is the way the word count works, which is both simple and complete.
But Google Docs has a very, very strange spell check. My working theory is that it was developed by a rapidly-changing crew of interns, some of whom were mentally unstable. The words that are not in the dicitonary as it arrives are staggering. I didn't start keeping formal track of it right away so I have forgotten some of the doozies, but once it questioned my use of the word fatherly and offered "motherly" as a substitute I began to suspect it would behoove me to keep a record. So I have been doing that.
I'm getting an average of one ridiculous suggestion every two thousand words. A word that the spell check really hates is any form of the verb "to stare." Once I told it that I did not want to change "staring" to "starring" it waited a few chapters till I wrote "stared" and offered me "started." I'm a little surprised that the word was not in the dictionary to start with.
Some other words that surprised me by not being in the dictionary till I put them there: pet, bonny, lewdly, drunker, foraged, relished, pouting, shouting, tree, palace, yews, rigamaroles, though, wont, meandered, sour, tack, dropped, tinny, curved.
I notice that a lot of these are verbs with inflection, or plural nouns, or modifiers formed by having endings added to them. But others are really basic words: pet, tree, palace, though, sour, tack. Really? The dictionary didn't have tree in it? Or though?
A whole class of suggestions is rooted in the compound word controversy. We have a lot of words in English where there is no special fundamental reason why the word shoulde be compound, or hyphenated, or left as two words. You just have to memorize which ones forms are preferred for each word. It's an area where I personally often prefer the less generally favored term, so when a spell check highlights one of those I am cautious. I can be downright wrong on these -- use a form that nobody else uses -- so I am unlikely to just "add to dictionary" when these come up. But the Google Docs spellcheck almost exclusively seems to favor the formation that comes second in Merriam-Webster. In some cases these are controversial forms, ones that language peevers will whine about for centuries if you don't shut them up, like "awhile." Now, I don't mind tweaking a peever now and then, but I hate the idea of thousands of innocent users who just don't know getting snookered into taking a controversial stand in their writing because of an errant spell check.
My guess is that these, along with the "fatherly" episode, are not accidental. I think that the interns at Google perpetrated a prank, and loaded the dictionary with these in order to create chaos and what they perceived as hilarity. The kindly forum moderators at Google say quiet and placating things when people run in and complain about it.
The only other serious bug I have found in Google Docs is that thing where, if you zoom the text at all, you might find that the cursor has become misaligned with the text. The only solution is to close and open the document again. You don't lose your work, because of the instantaneous save feature, but if you made any typoes because of the glitch, you will have a hard time fixing them until after you have closed and opened again. This bug seems to have been partially fixed over the summer, but it has happened to me once or twice lately, and I notice people are still complaining about it. Since I am no longer using Frank's laptop to write with I have a lot fewer episodes of inadvertent zooming too (something about the layout of his keyboard and touchpad had me frequently hovering over the keypad in a way that convinced it I was trying to zoom and to fly the cursor around the screen also: notice I said "hover," too -- it was way over sensitive).
On the actual writing front, as opposed to mere typing, I feel that the revisions are coming along nicely, which naturally makes me fear that I am missing something in the big picture. Naturally.
But Google Docs has a very, very strange spell check. My working theory is that it was developed by a rapidly-changing crew of interns, some of whom were mentally unstable. The words that are not in the dicitonary as it arrives are staggering. I didn't start keeping formal track of it right away so I have forgotten some of the doozies, but once it questioned my use of the word fatherly and offered "motherly" as a substitute I began to suspect it would behoove me to keep a record. So I have been doing that.
I'm getting an average of one ridiculous suggestion every two thousand words. A word that the spell check really hates is any form of the verb "to stare." Once I told it that I did not want to change "staring" to "starring" it waited a few chapters till I wrote "stared" and offered me "started." I'm a little surprised that the word was not in the dictionary to start with.
Some other words that surprised me by not being in the dictionary till I put them there: pet, bonny, lewdly, drunker, foraged, relished, pouting, shouting, tree, palace, yews, rigamaroles, though, wont, meandered, sour, tack, dropped, tinny, curved.
I notice that a lot of these are verbs with inflection, or plural nouns, or modifiers formed by having endings added to them. But others are really basic words: pet, tree, palace, though, sour, tack. Really? The dictionary didn't have tree in it? Or though?
A whole class of suggestions is rooted in the compound word controversy. We have a lot of words in English where there is no special fundamental reason why the word shoulde be compound, or hyphenated, or left as two words. You just have to memorize which ones forms are preferred for each word. It's an area where I personally often prefer the less generally favored term, so when a spell check highlights one of those I am cautious. I can be downright wrong on these -- use a form that nobody else uses -- so I am unlikely to just "add to dictionary" when these come up. But the Google Docs spellcheck almost exclusively seems to favor the formation that comes second in Merriam-Webster. In some cases these are controversial forms, ones that language peevers will whine about for centuries if you don't shut them up, like "awhile." Now, I don't mind tweaking a peever now and then, but I hate the idea of thousands of innocent users who just don't know getting snookered into taking a controversial stand in their writing because of an errant spell check.
My guess is that these, along with the "fatherly" episode, are not accidental. I think that the interns at Google perpetrated a prank, and loaded the dictionary with these in order to create chaos and what they perceived as hilarity. The kindly forum moderators at Google say quiet and placating things when people run in and complain about it.
The only other serious bug I have found in Google Docs is that thing where, if you zoom the text at all, you might find that the cursor has become misaligned with the text. The only solution is to close and open the document again. You don't lose your work, because of the instantaneous save feature, but if you made any typoes because of the glitch, you will have a hard time fixing them until after you have closed and opened again. This bug seems to have been partially fixed over the summer, but it has happened to me once or twice lately, and I notice people are still complaining about it. Since I am no longer using Frank's laptop to write with I have a lot fewer episodes of inadvertent zooming too (something about the layout of his keyboard and touchpad had me frequently hovering over the keypad in a way that convinced it I was trying to zoom and to fly the cursor around the screen also: notice I said "hover," too -- it was way over sensitive).
On the actual writing front, as opposed to mere typing, I feel that the revisions are coming along nicely, which naturally makes me fear that I am missing something in the big picture. Naturally.