Use Your Search Engine as a Spell Check

Google is smarter than spell check. But to be fair, Yahoo! is also smarter than spell check. And while I haven't surveyed all the search engines, it's possible many of those surpass spell check in intelligence. So, when spell check is unable to help you find the spelling you are looking for, it's time to ask the search engines.

In college I literally wore out the pages of my dictionary. During high school I was legendary in my lack of spelling skills, in spite of my high GPA. In those days there were no home computers and word processors with spell check, to conceal the fact I occasionally slipped my e before i, at inappropriate times.

The old adage "If I don't know how to spell it, how am I going to find it in the dictionary" doesn't necessarily apply to the word processor's spell check. Normally spell check will present you with several replacements for your misspelled word, and your job is to determine the appropriate word.

But, sometimes even spell check can't figure out what the heck you are writing about. You misspell some word, and instead of giving you a list of possibilities, it is stumped. Don't you hate when that happens? Now you are frantically trying to sound out the word, coming up with all sorts of spellings, but still no help from spell check.

The next time this happens, cut and paste your misspelled word in the search box of Google or Yahoo!, and there is an excellent chance it will pop up with did you mean: and then provide you with a possibility. Click on the suggestion, and up comes an array of web pages on that word. One of the first few pages are likely to be the word's definition, which will help you determine if that is the word you wanted.

This brings me back to another feature of the word processor that can be a great writing tool. It is the thesaurus, similar to spell check. When using Microsoft Word, highlight the questionable word, go to tools, then language, and thesaurus. Traditionally you'd use this feature to find other words with similar meanings, yet the writer can use this tool for another purpose.

The English language has all sorts of words that sound alike, and are similarly spelled, with different meanings. A simple example are the words there and their. If writers are unsure of a word they just typed (the spelling is correct, but perhaps it really is not the correct word), they can always look the word up in the dictionary. Or, they can highlight the word, and run it through the thesaurus.

The word processor's spell check and thesaurus are pretty cool features. But when they aren't smart enough to get the job done, try a search engine.