Only Word Check uses the preferred Australian English spelling. Other sites use American or British English. Check your spelling using Australian English spelling.

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Thursday, July 31, 2014

News.com.au article - The 16 foods people spell wrong all the time

I thought this was an interesting article which appeared online today. How many of the food related words do you struggle with. I have to admit it took a trip to English before I finally realised the correct way to say Worcestershire. So obvious once your realise.

Here are 17 words people spell wrong all the time. Please, for the love of all things culinary, correct the error of your ways if you find a word here that you spell incorrectly...read more

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

If the apostrophe gives you problems as it does many, this page on the Macquarie site may be quite useful.

You would think the apostrophe being such a simple character would be easy to use. As it turns out, it isn't and there's quite some effort required to use it properly. Look around you and most days you'll be able to see the apostrophe being used incorrectly.

On the Macquarie dictionary site I found the following guide to punctuation and felt this was a worthwhile resource to share with others.

https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au/resources/view/resource/6/

Word Check which can be found on the Australian Dictionary site I maintain, can be quite useful as many possessives and contractions are included, but quite a few of the subtle uses of the apostrophe are not be found in a dictionary.

Keep in mind you need to not only consider the correct usage, but also convention. For example in Melbourne we have a bridge which crosses the Yarra in the city. I've always pronounced the name of the bridge as Princess Bridge. I find when I ask people in Melbourne most people pronounce the name of the bridge the same way. The actual name is Princes Bridge. To me that made no sense. It was only recently that I found out that by convention the apostrophe is not included. Logically it should be Prince's Bridge, but by convention it is Princes Bridge.

We also have a major highway being the Princes Highway. Next time someone mentioned the name listen carefully. Chances are those around you will be calling it Princess Highway as well. Now you know, you may wish to let them in on the secret.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.Australian-Dictionary.com.au

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Australian Dictionary - The preferred Australian English spellcheck dictionary files for MS Office, Internet Explorer and OSX.

Most Australians aren't aware the Australian dictionary used in the leading software applications do not provide the preferred Australian English spelling. The software applications in fact contain multiple spelling variations, which can lead to documents containing the one word spelt differently in the same document and the writer wouldn't necessarily know.

There are  in fact over 2,400 secondary spelling variations contained in Microsoft Office, including words such as organise/organize, focused/focussed and mum/mom. There are also words which are spelt incorrectly such as snorkeler, and the correct spelling snorkeller needs to be added to the dictionary.

The preferred Australian English spelling files correct this shortcoming of MS Office on both Windows and Macs, in Internet Explorer 10/11, and in development is a native dictionary for OSX which works with Outlook 2011 and native applications on the Mac.

For some the preferred Australian English spelling simplifies the language and for others produces documents with less errors. If spelling is an important part of your life or business, consider checking out my work at www.Australian-Dictionary.com.au.

Kelvin Eldridge
Creator of the preferred Australian English spelling dictionary.
www.Australian-Dictionary.com.au