Is spell-checking software becoming a linguistic authority?

Question

It seems that‒whether intentionally or not‒spell-checking software in web browsers and productivity suites heavily influence our use of language. For example: in drafting a document, I found that my spelling dictionary did not include the word unbeknownst. The average user would likely take that as an indication of the word's obsolescence or nonexistence.

Is there some discussion in the linguistics world around this impact and the effect it may have on the field?

Answer 1

I would see this as an extension of the branch of linguistics called metalexicography which for decades has been examining people's use and perception of dictionaries and related works.

Practitioners of the field have long since noted phenomena which I think aren't in essence any different with modern electronic dictionaries/spellcheckers, whereby dictionary users believe that dictionaries are "seen as the repository of the linguistic 'truth' as opposd to actual usage" (Sledd and Ebbitt 1962)" or where there are "cases where dictionaries were used as evidence in a court of justice". Béjoint, via other authors, cites various examples, including cases where dictionaries were consulted by legislative bodies to decide whether a continental breakdast counted as 'board', or whether a T-shirt was classed as a 'souvenir'. The same author discusses how dicitonaries have also been seen as guardians of moral standards, with various words with sexual connotations appearing surprisingly late in dictionaries (p. 125).

If you look at people's use of word processor dictionaries and electronic dictionaries in general, I think what we're seeing is essentially an extension of this phenomenon. In times gone by, people would have worried a great deal that "The Dictionary" that they happened to have on their shelf happened not to include a particular word; now they instead worry that Microsoft Word puts a squiggly red line under it. And there are even still cases where users expect Microsoft Word's spellchecker to be some kind of bastion of morality: a glitch a few years ago, whereby the French word "anti-stress" was replaced by "anti-arabe", was not treated by some users as being a boring technical bug.

Answer 2

I have a tendency to add the extraneous "u" as per English English (rather than American English). So colour, honour, dialogue, favourite, etc. Nearly all of these are marked as misspelled, even though the alternate spellings are recognized, if not encouraged.

So yes, I think that people who rely heavily on spellcheckers are forced to conform to the spellcheckers' (spellchequers'?) dictionary. On the whole, I don't think this is bad: the average writer isn't going to benefit from using a 10-dollar word that was considered too esoteric for the spellchecker. And anyone who is capable of using the word correctly will be able to confirm the spelling.

Answer 3

Well somebody has to be the authority and assuming the word lists are sourced from decent dictionaries I don't see a problem. It would be interesting to look for errors in the lists becoming more popular than the 'correct' spelling.

One interesting aspect though is the spell checker in some systems (particularly Google Chrome I'm using) seem to use spanning algorithms to come up with regularised versions of irregular spellings. I wonder if these will become popular as the software essentially cleans up English? There have been numerous attempts to fix English over the years with more or less success (Mr Webster) but once it takes effort to undo the corrections back to the old 'odd' spelling then laziness might win.

I have had to accept a lot more words being Americani S ed just because I can't always switch the spelling dictionary.