I assume there are a number of Chrome users here. Have any of you noticed that Chrome has the worst spell checker ever? I started noticing it about four years ago, and at some point I decided to keep a running list of all the words Chrome doesn't know about. Believe it or not, it thinks "axe" is misspelled, or maybe it thinks you mean something else. Still, it shouldn't get red-lined.

Anyway, I've created a post about it on the Google product forums. If you're interested in my current 122-word list, you can check it out here.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are Chrome extensions that fill out the dictionary, but this really isn't something that I should need an extension for, especially when Google has plenty of products with good spelling.

I often turn to Google or MS Word when I just can't think of the spelling.

That's exactly what I do, except that most of the time I actually know the spelling, but Chrome will throw me off my game! Every one of the words in that list is a word that I typed correctly, then felt the need to double-check in a Google search.

I stated previously I hated the way iOS spell check worked. With 8.1, it has gotten even worse.

It randomly adds an s to the end of various words for no reason. Every time I type 'were' it thinks I mean 'we're'. It has autocorrected 'iOS' into 'amo logos'. It has changed 'there' to 'their', which was incorrect. Some of the 'corrections' are just absolutely bizarre. I thought about keeping a list, maybe I should.

Your list of correctly spelled words that Chrome got wrong include eight instances where you list the same word twice and six instances where the same word appears three times in your list. To make it into a worst-case scenario, I considered plurals and preterites of a word to be the same word. Example: "splitter" = "splitters".

In reality, you only have 102 unique words in your list, one of which ("upgradable") truly is misspelled. This suggests that the Chrome spell check is only 83.6% as bad as you think it is.

So, do I win the pedanticism award this month?

tanstaafl.

Yes a number of duplicates

Yeah I disagree on upgradable but seems either is valid. Chrome tells me right not that upgradeable is also wrong though.

Many words in there that are basically tech slang too.

What's "trainings"?

"Creeped" should be "crept"

and others but I'm not sure I can be bothered

Definitely some legitimate claims in there though.

Wow, I had to look up "currier". My first reaction was, that's a strange word for "Indian restauranteur".

As a "fogey" I'm sort-of happy with Chrome's opinion that "town-home", "shower-head", "curve-ball", and maybe even "counter-top" and "back-light" aren't single words, that "remote" and "silo" aren't verbs and that "procedural" isn't a noun. And "ophthalmology" is a man-trap of a word with two H's and two L's. But yes, I don't see how you're meant to get away without "thusly" or "lenticular"...

Peter

Unless you are using it as a colloquialism, i.e., "Dignan's list of misspelled words really creeped me out."

But that's reaching, I admit.

tanstaafl.

Yes, you win the pedant awards, Doug. But there's one place where you're wrong. A word and the plural of that word are not the same word. Not to a computer. The ability for a spell checker to recognize either as correctly spelled depends on whether that spell checker has been told that the plural of the word is also correct.

Besides, if you read my post on the Google forum, you'd see that I assumed there were issues with my list. That's not the point. The point is that there are about 100 words that I've come across so far - probably many more - that shouldn't be marked as misspelled. I recognize that a lot of them are a little silly and/or technical, but that doesn't mean they're not words. The overall point I'm trying to make is that Chrome's spell checker is worse than that spell checkers in Google's other properties, and I feel like I've made that point.


I'm normally not one to accept words just because they've crept into the vernacular, but I think "creeped" has crept its way in


Sorry, Doug, you lost the pedant award. If you're going to make that claim you should do some research. A simple Google search will take you the Merriam Webster where both spellings are considered acceptable, and my version is listed first.


Haha, that one truly is my bad. Oops! I also screwed up on the ophthalmology words. Dang. Too many letters!


I was using procedurals as in "police procedurals," but yes, that's a bit of a colloquialism. However, I have never seen any of your hyphenated words in that form. Perhaps it's only a recent thing, but around here, you look for upgradable countertops and showerheads in your new townhome. I'll forgive a Brit for not knowing how to throw a curveball, though you can look up how if the backlight on your device's screen is bright enough.

Can't remember the last time I was crept out. The linguistics fight has been going on for ages! I'm sure the critics of the time panned Shakespeare for his spelling.

When he must, my linguistics-prof friend tends to fall a bit more on the descriptive rather than prescriptive side. But he tries to stay out of the fight.

He did have fun putting together "Language, Ethnicity, and Inequality in HBO's The Wire" as an honors course, though.

-jk

I am "spelling challenged" (no doubt there is some sort of medical term for my condition, maybe dumb ) so the big issue I have with Chrome is its lack of suggestions. I know the right spelling when I see it but Chrome often gives me no choices or very few for my misspelled word. On the other hand Word and Google seem to know what I want to say. It’s surprising to me how bad Chrome is since it springs from the world’s greatest search engine creators (I did like Alta-Vista in the old days)

Agreed. Chrome almost always suggests two separate words instead of whatever word I typed incorrectly. There are times where I know I'm not certain of the spelling, so I'll give it my best shot, hoping to get a good suggestion. That almost never works out!

No, I haven't noticed that. I depend upon Chrome to spell check things like this forum post, and generally, when it gives me the little red squiggly underline under a word, it's correct about that word being misspelled (or it's a name or a tech word). I think Chrome's spell checker has generally been pretty darn good.

Only finding 100-or-so missing dictionary words over a four-year period is, I think, not bad at all for something like a web browser. I'd expect more from Microsoft Word, but for Chrome, I think that's doing pretty good.

Keep in mind that any software with a spelling dictionary is making tradeoffs between dictionary size, software execution speed, and software installation size. Chrome was always meant to be lean and fast, so I think it does darn good within that restriction.

The real issue here is, why the heck isn't spellchecking an OS feature in Windows by now? Why does it still have to be on a per-application basis? What a waste.

One good thing about a per-application basis is that if the spell checking goes into full-on-stupid mode (like my issues with iOS 8.1), it only affects one application, rather than every single one, which is beyond obnoxious.