Website Spellchecker

When I type certain words to this forum they are 'highlighted' for incorrect spelling. Typical examples are ' aluminium' and 'sulphuric'.

It appears that an American spell checker is in use to check posts.

For the forums you might consider a Queen's English spell checker.

* Danny M *

Aluminium, Sulphuric

No, not got that problem here. What OS are you using and is it set to “English” English? Maybe your browser.

I know the Americans can’t pronounce certain words properly but I thought they still spelt Aluminium the same as us?

No Vic, the Americans use 'Aluminum' while 'Aluminium' is used for instance in Europe. When I click the spellchecker button to run the spellchecker Aluminium (and sulphur) is flagged and the American version is suggested.

Thor

I don't use the spellchecker icon but my computer will underline anything that is wrong, seems it is happy to swing both ways.

If you are fussy then the spell checker icon has the option to choose what you want top left eg American English, British English, canadian English etc

Edited By JasonB on 29/07/2018 14:08:15

I'm using Chrome and under advanced settings both my language and my spellchecker are set to English (United Kingdom). As a result, the US spellings are underlined red.

Brian

The spell check as you type function, is normally provided by your browser of choice. The spell check button on the forum editor seems to make use of it's own applet. I use Firefox and with the latest version you need to make sure that the "British English Dictionary" is included in the Add-Ons section. If you also add the US English dictionary it will allow those "over the pond" spellings as well. I haven't checked but other browsers will probably work in much the same way.

John

Edited By Journeyman on 29/07/2018 15:17:03

I, a little while back, complained that the spell checker seemed to be biased to the USA spelling of certain things including sulphur and sulphuric acid; it was determined to use 'f' instead of 'ph'. However I was corrected by two erstwhile members of this forum and informed that the 'f' version has now been accepted and the 'ph' has been consigned to obscurity and old timers memory lane trips. If you just happen to be interested you can find it towards the end of the 'Sulphuric Acid' thread here. Being an Old Fart I will continue to use the now outdated spelling with the 'ph' and assume that 'There is no F in Sulphuric Acid'; which, as it happens, is almost true with the latest government regulations.

Martin

Edited By Martin W on 29/07/2018 16:36:02

And where will it end? Alfabet, apostrofe, hyfen, difthong and glyf will be next. My mate Jock McFerson is blasfeming about it. His drofead coupe has a top-speed of 100mf and he's a farmacist...

It's British English here...

I have no idea what it defaults to in Aus... but that may be why you are getting non-UK spellings.

Neil

For clarity, I'm set up to use a Firefox plugin, which uses British English and requires a ctrl-right click to get offers of alternative spellings.

If I enable the built in checker it doesn't let me change the language, but defaults to British English anyway.

Neil

Ah, I didn’t know that Thor. Wiki says virtually the entire planet agreed on Aluminium until the Americans changed their mind and the American Chemical Society adopted Aluminum in 1925. You learn something every day, thanks.

Curiously I have the built-in checker enabled and, although it defaults to American English, I can switch temporarily to British, or any of several other languages. There's also a feature that promises to let me add words to a local dictionary. Not tried that in case I break something.

Wild guess is that different experiences are caused by member security settings. I try not to share my locality which may explain why WebSpellCheck defaults to en-US for me: it doesn't know I'm in the UK. If you do share your locality with the web (geo.enable in Firefox), the spell checker might select a more appropriate dictionary.

Dave

Except Huphrey Davy originally called it Alumium and changed HIS mind to Aluminum!

Those Americans aren't completely mad. We spell Aluminium as in Potassium, they spell it consistent with Platinum. Who is right?

I see Neil has dropped an awful clanger by misspelling 'Huphrey Davy;. He meant to type 'Hufrey' in line with 'Sulfuric'...

Dave

Spelling checkers aside, the IUPAC issued the official verdict on the spelling of aluminium and sulfur in 1990.

Unfortunately, they allowed illiterate colonials to continue to misspell aluminium as an alternative to the officially sanctioned spelling.

Noah Webster should have been locked up!

That’s easy Dave, we are! If you look at the periodic table there are a huge number of elements that end in “ium” and only a few in “um”

Mine seems to defer to the American spelling. But that's ok. It's just like living in a Hollywood movie.

Let’s be fair chaps there is only ONE true English and that’s the one where it originated 🤗

Slightly off topic and just to throw a spanner in the works —— what’s a billon ? When I was at school it was (is) a million million (bi million) 1,000,000,000,000, now it seems to have been degraded ( by Mr Wilson ?) to a thousand million 1000,000,000 thus 1/1000th of the original ?

Incidentally I reckon someone took the wrong bucket over for the gallon as well 🤔

John

Having had a reasonable level of education in the 40's and 50's I have never felt the need for these spellcheckers, my last spellchecker was my Secondary School English teacher, okay I make the odd mistake but am I bothered? Answer= No, this is my personal opinion and not critical of people who do use said provision

Mick 👩‍🎓👨‍⚖

If your spelling is as rough as your punctuation, it's a good thing you are not bothered! (Two misplaced apostrophes and four run-on sentences with commas where there should be full stops.)

But, like you, I'm not bothered. The message gets across. It's an internet forum, not a schoolroom. As long as we're all having fun. Carry on.