Password again required to access Word Check

I've made Word Check available without restriction to the general public for many months now. Thousands of people a month use Word Check to check the spelling of words and also to see if they're using the preferred Australian English spelling, but unfortunately I find people just come and go and contribute nothing in return.

There's nothing wrong with this as this is how we all are on the internet. With open source software I found most people took and very few gave anything back and that included the open source projects who also used my work such a Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.

Unfortunately I can't be that generous as I have a family to support so my time has to now be focused on the people who value my time and efforts sufficiently to give something in return.

My apologies for any inconvenience.


Kelvin Eldridge
Online Connections
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 for computer support.
Servicing Templestowe, Doncaster, Eltham and the surrounding area.

Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 is now available for Australians.

Exciting news.

Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 has now been released by Microsoft and is available for download. I’ve downloaded and installed Internet Explorer 10 and also installed the preferred Australian English spelling file I provide to clients and it works as expected. Now thousands of secondary spelling variations which exist in the standard Australian English dictionary provided by Microsoft, will be marked as spelling errors. Now “mom” for example will be marked as a spelling error, as will the many “ize” spelling variations, American spellings and errors I’ve identified in the standard dictionary.

At last the preferred Australian English spelling can now be made available to Internet Explorer 10 users on both Windows 7 and Windows 8.

In the next couple of days I’ll update the instructions for Windows 7, but for those who can’t wait, go to http://www.australian-dictionary.com.au/internet-explorer/ and purchase a copy of the preferred Australian English spelling file. The steps to install the file are the same.

 

Kelvin Eldridge

Online Connections

www.OnlineConnections.com.au

Call 0415 910 703 for computer advice and support.

 

Is it wellbeing or well-being?

When researching the words wellbeing and well-being, the Australian Oxford doesn't list wellbeing at all, but the Macquarie dictionary lists wellbeing as the primary spelling and well-being as a secondary spelling.

When I find inconsistency in the leading authoritative references in Australia, I like to check Australian usage. Previously Yahoo was an excellent search engine to use, but over time this has become less so. Google isn't that good either. If you search using Pages from Australia with Google, you'd expect to get pages from Australia, but what you actually get I really can't say, making it pretty useless for any analysis.

Google however enables people to create their own search engine. A while ago I created a search engine to only include sites which have a .au domain (http://www.justlocal.com.au/search/australia/). Using the subset of pages produced by the custom search engine you get a good feeling as to the use of words in Australia.

Using http://www.justlocal.com.au/search/australia/ and searching for wellbeing and well-being, the results are 3.57 million and 1.38 million pages respectively. A good indication that wellbeing is now used considerably more than well-being and thus supporting the entry in the Macquarie dictionary as compared to the Australian Oxford dictionary.

My dictionary work aims to provide the preferred Australian English spelling of words, which means when checking the two words using Word Check (http://www.australian-dictionary.com.au/wordcheck/), the preferred spelling in Australia is wellbeing.

Kelvin Eldridge
Online Connections
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 for computer support.
Servicing Templestowe, Doncaster, Eltham and the surrounding area.

Check the spelling of a word using Word Check for free.

To my knowledge, the Word Check tool I've created and provide for free on the internet, is the only tool which enables people to check the Australian English spelling of a word and then easily look up the meaning of the word. In addition, Word Check is the only online tool to provide the preferred Australian English spelling.

Many people will dismiss the importance of good or even reasonable spelling. The following article shows that 54% of recruiters frown on poor spelling (second to profanity at 61%) on the social media sites of potential candidates

Want a job? Check the spelling on your Facebook profile... Read More
If you're not sure of the spelling of a word, check the spelling using Word Check, which is available at http://www.australian-dictionary.com.au/wordcheck/.

Two other tools you may find of interest are the preferred Australian English spelling for Microsoft Office and the preferred Australian English spelling for Internet Explorer 10. When spelling really matters, using the preferred Australian English spelling will give you the best result. The preferred Australian English spelling is only available from Online Connections. I created and maintain the preferred Australian English spelling because to me it matters.

So for those who wish to keep their online presence as professional as possible and increase the chances of landing that ideal job, add the preferred Australian English spelling to Internet Explorer 10 and update your social media sites knowing you're using the preferred Australian English spelling. Since the preferred Australian English spelling is only available for Internet Explorer 10, those using Google Chrome, Firefox or Safari will be at a disadvantage and for you that's a bonus.
Kelvin Eldridge
Online Connections
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 for computer support.
Servicing Templestowe, Doncaster, Eltham and the surrounding area.

Offence or offense?

Recently for some reason, I thought about the spelling variations offence and offense. I don’t know why, but I wondered how confusing the spelling of this word could be. We are so used to seeing similar words such as licence and license, that it would be easy to use the incorrect spelling. Luckily the situation in Australia is very clear.

The spelling in Australia is offence. Offense is the American spelling.

Interestingly, if you perform a search using Google for just pages from Australia, for “I took offence” and “I took offense”, the number of results returned are 33,300 and 162,000 respectively. That means a staggering proportion of over eighty per cent of pages on Australian sites are using the incorrect spelling.

If you’re in doubt about the correct or preferred Australian English spelling of a word, you can use my Word Check tool located at http://www.australian-dictionary.com.au/wordcheck/. If you’d like to use the preferred Australian English spelling with Microsoft Office or Internet Explorer 10, you can find products on the Australian Dictionary site www.Australian-Dictionary.com.au.

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

 

UPDATE: The results from Google just didn't feel right. I decided to redo the test using my Custom Search Engine (which uses Google services) and limits pages to domains ending in .au. The search engine can be found at http://www.justlocal.com.au/search/australia/. This test shows most pages use the correct spelling. Not really sure what Google is then displaying when it comes to pages from Australia.

Should it be cannot or can not?

I was reading the following article by Andrew Birch and thought the digression in the comments about the wording of the title was interesting.

Setting The Story Straight On Windows RT & Why Firefox And Chrome Can Not And Should Not Be There... Read More

The original article was published using “cannot” and was later changed to “can not”. I don’t know about others, but something as seemingly minor as the use of cannot or can not would catch me out as well.

Checking the Australian Oxford Dictionary and the Macquarie Dictionary doesn’t really help either. At best the Macquarie states “a form of can not” and the Oxford simply gives the meaning of cannot as “can not”. So no real clarification from the authoritative references.

The online UK Oxford dictionary does provide some assistance with the definition of cannot. According to the online UK Oxford dictionary “Both the one-word form cannot and the two-word form can not are acceptable, but cannot is more common.” The online Oxford states the two-word is better “only in a construction in which not is part of a set phrase, such as ‘not only ... but (also)’: Paul can not only sing well, he also paints brilliantly”.

To me this means we think of “Paul can” and then the rest of the sentence. This isn’t the same situation as “can not and should not”.

I decided to check the usage in Australia using the returned results from Google with only pages from Australia. There was a fairly even split at 1.38 and 1.44 million for cannot and can not respectively. Not enough to state there was an overwhelming preference for one form versus another. Using the UK version of Google and only UK pages, the use was overwhelmingly for the two-word form.

What is interesting is Microsoft Word marks “can not” with a blue squiggly line which could cause many to change the two-word form to a single word. This is an example of a word processing tool making a suggestion and changing how someone writes. In this case the suggestion isn’t strictly wrong, but suggesting a change when it may not be necessary may be considered wrong of the word processor.

Based on this information the article by Andrew mentioned above, Andrew didn’t need to change the title as both variations are correct. Which variation is preferred is also difficult to determine. Whilst the UK Oxford would indicate the single-word form would be preferred, usage on the internet does not confirm the statement. In addition, whilst the UK Oxford may state something, I’m interested in the preferred Australian English spelling and our spelling has in many instances diverged from the UK spelling in terms of the preferred spelling.

Unfortunately at this time, this is one of those situations where I can’t give guidance to others. You have to love our language.

- Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 for help with your computer problem.
Servicing Templestowe, Doncaster, Eltham and the surrounding area.

Is it en suite or ensuite?

I checked these two words quite some time ago but I have to admit, I’d forgotten which one is the preferred spelling. My free online tool Word Check (which provides the preferred Australian English spelling), does give “ensuite” as the preferred spelling, but when I type “ensuite” in a Microsoft application it comes up as a spelling error. I decided to recheck the word.

The Australian Oxford lists “en suite” and has “ensuite” as a secondary spelling. The Macquarie dictionary provides both words, but the spelling we’re interested in is “ensuite”. That is the spelling for the small utility room which adjoins a bedroom. The word “en suite” in the Macquarie dictionary is listed as a French word and thus is not the spelling we’d use in Australia.

It is not unusual for the Oxford and the Macquarie to differ in the preferred spelling. When this happens I then see what the general usage is in Australia using the search engines and only including pages from Australia. Often one spelling will have much greater use than another. In general the search engines return “ensuite” at roughly a ratio of four to one.

For this reason I accept the Macquarie’s entry over the Oxford this time.

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

Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 7 release date.

Another hint that Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 is getting closer is the release of the Toolkit to Disable Automatic Delivery of Internet Explorer 10.

The Toolkit to Disable Automatic Delivery of Internet Explorer 10 is used to stop the automatic updating of Internet Explorer by Windows Update. This is important in large organisations where they don't want to risk breaking web applications by installing a more recent browser.

Looking back, Internet Explorer 9 was released on the 14th of March 2011. The blocker toolkit was released on the 10th of February 2011which is roughly a month before.

This may mean that we might expect Internet Explorer 10 sometime in March, but I still hold out hope for an earlier release.

I'm looking forward to the release of Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 7 as it means more people will be able to take advantage of the preferred Australian English spelling I provide, if as expected spellchecking is built in.

I already supply the preferred Australian English spelling to users of IE10 under Windows 8 via the site www.australain-dictionary.com.au.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 if you require help with your computer.
No problem too small.