30 March 2009

MsWord = lolwut?

Okay! Okay. Guys, here is a perfect example of why MsWord's grammar check is made of fail and you might as well just turn it off right now, as it will always steer you in the wrong direction.
So I'm writing, right, and I wrote a sentence containing the phrase "can of shaving creme". Okay? So MsWord didn't recognize that I was using "can" as a noun, which is a common mistake for it so whatever. But to amuse myself I clicked it to see what suggestions it had, and it told me to change "can" to "could".
Remember, please, that "can" was followed immediately by "of".
Thaaaat's right, folks, MsWord thinks that the phrase "could of" is grammatically correct.
And that is why it fails.

Because I can't remember whether I've covered this or not, please note: the phrase people usually mean when they say "could of" is "could've", which is the contraction for "could have". "Could of" is a bastardization based on normal pronunciation and is never correct. Ever. So there.

Why yes, I am actually using Word 2003, so it's entirely possible that this particular issue may not exist in newer versions; that said, it's an excellent example of why you should never trust a machine to do your proofreading for you, because issues like this will always crop up here or there.

2 comments:

Artemendo said...

Oh wow. Now that is astronomical fail right there. Every time some human writes "could of", it makes me want to tear their heads off, but if it's a spell checker, then my belief in humanity is officially halved.

Anonymous said...

Shaving creme? Is it French? o.0

MS Word knows nothing, but it can help you if you don't know how to spell a word...