Contextual spelling

Jensen Harris: An Office User Interface Blog:

Now, in Word 2007, a new kind of squiggle is being introduced: the blue squiggle. There’s a new feature in Office called “contextual spelling” and it’s designed to detect words that are correctly spelled but improperly used.

An example: it seems to me that 90% of the Internet world believes the English word lose is actually spelled loose.

“This is one battle I’m not willing to loose.”
“I need to loose thirty more pounds.”

1. Cool feature. Even I, with my perfect writing test scores, still make these stupid mistakes. For an example, see this.

2. Just yesterday I was thinking about writing a polemic about the proper way to spell “lose.”

3. Do these tools (spellcheck, google, etc.) make us smarter or stupider? I think it depends on the person. You can use them as tools to help you learn, or you can use them as crutches so you don’t have to worry about learning.