A funny example of how you can’t trust the spelling and grammar checks in Word.
We laughed at this sign, seen in a Tesco’s supermarket in the UK.
Thanks to @sparkigol for the image
Now, we don’t know that Microsoft Word was used to make this sign, but it’s a good bet. So we wondered how anyone could print out those sentences without noticing the red or blue squiggly lines?
Guess what – according to Word 2013 that entire document has no grammar mistakes at all! Even ‘incontinence’ doesn’t get a contextual spelling query. It’s the same in the US, UK and Aussie variants of the installed English proofing tools.
That’s surprising but a warning to all of us …
Do NOT trust Word’s spelling and grammar checking too much.
It’s surprising that the first sentence doesn’t trigger something in Word’s grammar check. Surely ‘and is removed’ would be flagged? We tried changing the capitals from ‘Chillers Break’ thinking that might be fooling the software a little – but no.
Incontinence vs Inconvenience
Word’s spelling suggestions are pretty good but one stray letter can mislead it. In this case we think a mistyped ‘t’ in the word inconvenience caused Word to suggest ‘incontinence’ as well. For example:
Quite aside from the grammar, the design is very poor but typical of what we’ve all seen. But it’s a great excuse for a shameless plug of our ebook – Eye-Catching Signs with Word which has 50 great signs that you can open, change the text and print out in minutes.
It also shows you how to make some plain text (like the Tesco’s sign) be more effective changing this
into this:
And yes, that sign is included as a Word document in Eye-Catching Signs with Word .
See Also
- QR Codes in Word
- How we made the ‘Adjust your monitor’ sign
- Don’t be a Spock – Adjust your monitor height
- Avoiding Comic Sans
- Christmas Cheer with Office, 2nd edition available now
