atw: SEC: UNCLASS Harry Potter's spell checker

I know I'm being a nit-picker again, but it's Friday (well, any
excuse'll do) and Ana's post reminded me of another personal pet hate.
Unfortunately it's another one I'm likely to have to learn to live with.

You know that tool we all use when we want to rid our documents of typos
and other misspellings? Well, I'd like to see that tool called a
*spelling* checker. But Microsoft, and now almost everyone else in the
world too, keeps calling it a *spell* checker. That always makes me
think of witches and Harry Potter. But I blame it all on an American
tendency to favour using verb forms instead of gerunds in phrases like
'swim school', 'dive instructor' (not 'swimming school', 'diving
instructor'). I can't think of a good general reason to object to this,
but it takes some getting used to and in some cases (like 'spell
checker') calls up unintended associations. I doubt that even an
American would say 'iron board', 'walk stick' or 'train video'.

Howard

----------------------------
    Howard L. Silcock
     Technical Writer
Common Services SOE Program
   Department of Defence
      (02) 626 58828  
----------------------------



 
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