I have spell-checking and (limited) AutoCorrect switched on, to save me having to go back and fix finger trouble (like my tendency to type "hte" instead of "the" when I'm typing fast). The spell-checker is no problem, as it just underlines things it doesn't like with a red squiggle.

I draw the line at grammar-checking, though, as I have problems accepting that a piece of software can have a sufficient grasp of human language to be able to offer useful tips. In any case, dialogue might legitimately contain bad grammar, because that's the way people speak. (In fact, the first time I had ever looked at the grammar-checker's options was just now when I composed my last posting. I'm amazed to see that it thinks it can spot cliches.)

Alex

Actually, yes, I let AutoCorrect do its thing on a very limited range of things. I even set it up once to type some recurring word (can't remember what, now) which was full of special characters I couldn't remember the ASCII numbers for and couldn't be bothered to pull up the character map or Word's menus for.

Can't bear red squiggly lines: as you say, there's so much in dialogue it doesn't understand. I'd use spell-check later as a rather primitive proof-reader, and do the rest myself. Maybe it's from primitive spell-checkers when I was publishing - yikes! 20 years ago - when our social work texts used to be corrected from 'handicapped' to 'bandicoot'. I remember getting some new software, and our IT bloke saying, 'it needs a thing called Windows to it... <sigh>

I've notice you rarely see true typos these days, but literals (they're, their, there) all over the place.

Emma

The one that always drives me up the wall is people confusing "you're" and "your". That, and the grocer's apostrophe, seem to be the indicators of present-day literacy standards.

I suppose I could turn off spell-checking-while-I-type in Word, to avoid the red underlines. Because of my limited settings on AutoCorrect, though, I like to have a warning of any words that aren't in the spell-checker's dictionary, just in case they are genuine typos. I much prefer to fix these as they happen, rather than having to go back and do hundreds in one go. If I do the latter, I tend to find I've gone into a trance halfway through, and have been merrily clicking the "Ignore All" button for genuine mistakes.

Alex

No, by the editor

Sarah

The one that always drives me up the wall is people confusing "you're" and "your".

Yes. I'm a stickler for punctuation, but I often find I type faster than I think, and when I look back over my stuff, I've written 'there' instead of 'their' or 'who's' when it should be 'whose'.

I've sometimes found myself writing "of" instead of "off", "an" instead of "and" and "the" instead of "then". Unfortunately, these are the kinds of typos that no spell-checker will spot. I guess a grammar checker might see them, but if it was also throwing out lots of other irrelevant warnings I would miss the real mistakes in the crowd.

Alex

I have to say, she says, hanging her head in shame - that I would be put off by the word love in the title too

Me too, Snowbell. I read this and was prompted to go and have a look on my shelf to see how many novels with love in the title I've read. Nine. Liked? One. That's about double my normal hit rate in that, in general, I tend to like about 1 in 5 or so. And as for absolutely go mad for, that's about 1 in 50 or so, I guess. Any economist worth their salt would probably tell me to cut my losses and stop reading right now.

Nine I've read:

Love, Etc, Julian Barnes
The Map of Love, Ahdaf Seouif
Enduring Love, Ian McEwen
Maps for Lost Lovers, Nadeem Aslam
Love in the time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
What I Loved, Siri Hustvedt
The History of Love, Nicole Krauss
Theft: A Love Story, Peter Carey

The only one of those that really does put me off reading it is The History of Love. It sounds so . . . . .so . . . .. . ugh.

I liked Enduring Love. Well, I liked it as much as it's possible to like a book that can never possibly live up to its opening.

Lesson to be learned from that one: Open brilliantly, but never so brilliantly that it makes the rest of the book look shit.

Actually, my main problem with The History of Love was that it was written with way too much head and not enough heart, which was kind of the opposite to at least four of the books on the list. I only picked up the book in the first place because she was the girlfriend of Jonathan Safran Foer who wrote the excellent Everything is Illuminated; and, now I think about it, I only bought Siri Hustvedt's debut because her husband's Paul Auster. As good a reason as any other to buy a book, I guess.

Oh my God. You actually wrote "off" instead of "of"? Shit man. I don't know how you could even carry on after that. Shit. I wrote "fop" instead of "For" once. Didn't stop laughing for about a week. And a half. I'm still kicking myself about it now actually.

Sorry, but I often mistype things on the forums, and I'd hate to think there was someone out there wincing eveytime I put "their is blah de blah de blah", because that would make them quite considerably small minded.

Obviously, if your righting you're actual novel, then it kneads to be proply checked and spelt.

Did U sea watt eye did their?

Jesus I am sorry (no not you, literally, Jesus. God, some people. No, not you God...oh dear). No I am sorry. Dunno what's the matter with me today. Monday I guess. Hopeless bloody Monday.

As for the love thang, it's a good job my next work is titled "I love Love, love" about a middle aged couple rediscovering their love.

"Phyllis stared wide eyed, at the engorged..."

Okay, I will try and shut up now.

Only like to add, my main problem with the history of love is it doesn't address all the hate in the world. It's a skewered look at history.

THAT'S IT!

"Phyllis stared wide eyed at the engorged skewer..."

Okay sorry for the terrible jokes. Almost unforgivable I know...