#spellcheck

Hi!

I would read this as "love ryou work" (thank you!)

Some tips: each word starts at the bottom of the word circle, so the second word would just need to be rotated clockwise so the "y" is at the bottom to say "your"

Also, vowels are usually much smaller than consonants, so the "e" in "love" is readable in context, but would work better if it was closer to the size of the other vowels.

I do love the look of this design, I don't think I'd considered working with filled in circles before!

If you're interested, I highly recommend checking out the gallifreyan discord server :)

How has Google Docs spellcheck gotten so bad? What are they doing over there?

Like, okay, they've done a gung ho switchover to "AI-assisted" spellcheck. Sure, fine, stupid but I get it, they're throwing money into Gemini or whatever, they want it to pay off, they're maybe trying to train it more.

But what fresh hell is this?

There's no word "hulkling". If you google the word, you get a Marvel character. If you google "hulking" then it gives you a definition from the dictionary. Google doesn't show you the number of results anymore, but I have to believe that "hulking" is entire orders of magnitude more common. If you enter both words into google's n-gram viewer, "hulkling" doesn't even get recognized.

So I have two theories.

Theory 1 is that their model just sucks ass. It's dog shit. It's suggesting a very uncommon non-word to replace a real word because ... well, maybe the model was trained wrong as a joke, maybe it's not the model per se but the criteria they're using to determine whether a word shows up as incorrect, I don't know.

Theory 2 is that this is a way of gaining more data. In theory, you can gain data not just from scraping millions of documents, but from suggesting words to people and having them say yes or no to the suggestion. But this would be such a low value candidate. If they're using spellcheck to refine their model (rather than good-faith effort to add value to their product) then they're doing a terrible job.

Theory 3 is that Goodhart's Law is in play somewhere. Someone got some incentive to have people interact with the spellchecker, and one way to do that is to just have the spellchecker throw out all kinds of shit. This seems unlikely to me, but you never know.

I just cannot understand the sheer level of incompetence and self-sabotage a company needs to be engaging in to have a publicly-facing product that works this poorly.

FFS it just told me flushable, repositioned, and scathed aren't words. But get this, if I click suggestions for 'scathed' it's like 'oh but unscathed is definitely a word. scathed tho? wtf is that are you stupid'

Excuse moi?! Me, wordy? You fuckin bet I am. How dare you try to silence my eloquent execution of the english conveyance of complex speech? Do we not wish to challenge readers anymore? Are we trying to kill off turns-of-phrase? How dare you assume to take words OUT of my mouth?! I used the phrase 'make arrangements' and you dare to shift it to the simple word 'decided'?? They mean completely different things! A shuffling stack of mentally draining tasks versus a concise decision. The implications that my protagonists are well-put together people who just suddenly can make a plan, takes away from their characterization! It is out of character at least, and ableist to assume all characters can do such a thing! Hiding all flaws behind a wall of professionalism and silvertongue's shine! It is DETESTABLE!

Nay, foul beast! Return to me the Spellcheck of my youth, whose ways never wavered, keeping the rules and regulations of modern grammar intact for each and every digital citizen! We have been thrown to chaos! I am not writing a work email! I am writing a period piece fiction of the fans! And I require room to breathe and spread my vocabulary wildly and plant my cadance with a sure foot. My vernacular and intonation give clarity to my true intents! To transport my fair and generous readers to a time and place they've never been! To see Vegeta and Bulma at a Regency tea party! To see the Ninja Turtles in a 1960s spy venture! To see love blossom betwixt an original character and the Martian Manhunter at a coffee shop in the nineties!

But you foul, ever-changing demon, shapeshifting into whatever trite confection corporate overlords wish to package and sell my work as! As a simple product, as easy to digest and forgotten like a popsicle! When in reality I offer a steak with layered opinion onions and subtle flavors in the form of prime-aged words and phrases that lend ideas to paint word pictures in the minds of readers!

Me? Concise? Never gonna happen, babe.