Faint and Feint confusion / myLot

March 27, 2010 4:29pm CST

Recently I started a discussion that used the word 'feint' when I meant 'Faint' being slightly dyslexic I have to rely on spell checkers which of course do not pick up misspelling. Any suggestions for overcoming this problem all the best urban

3 responses

hofferp

@hofferp (4734)

• United States

27 Mar 10

I find you just have to re-read what you wrote...more than once. I get lots of words messed up that sound the same -- they're, there and their; your and you're; etc. Other than re-reading, I have no real suggestions.

urbandekay

@urbandekay (18278)

•

27 Mar 10

Aye, and who's and whose all the best urban

Patsie Hatley is Deceased

@Hatley (163772)

• Garden Grove, California

27 Mar 10

hi people but there is one word that you can use for all tenses read, I read, you read he read, or I have read or we will read it, so some words are actually kind to us all.

Patsie Hatley is Deceased

@Hatley (163772)

• Garden Grove, California

27 Mar 10

urbandekay the trouble there is they sound alike but also because you have a word thats not the word you want and it is spelled correctly the spelling checker bypasses it. so there are some words you just will have to memorize the spelling of like faint meaning to lose consciousness. I don't know of any other way to do that really as the spelling checker cannot help when its the wrong word and is spelled correctly.

sulynsi

@sulynsi (2669)

• Canada

27 Mar 10

I don't think a spell checker would work in this instance, urban, because both feint and faint are perfectly good words. I doubt there is a program complex enough to pick up that a word is being used in the wrong context. Homonyms, like these two, are tricky. I know there is a grammar check component on Word, but I don't know if it could pick up the subtlety. If there is such a program I'd love to hear of it!