Recently I attended a trade show where a number of people gave presentations. One person was a leading business coach and I’d guess they were being paid a very healthy fee to present. As I sat listening to his presentation and reading his slides there it was. A spelling error.
The problem is once you see a spelling error in the presentation your mind immediately wanders from the presentation.
To be fair, this wasn’t completely the presenter’s fault. None of us are perfect spellers and we tend to rely on our spellcheckers to pick up typos and spelling errors. In this case the presenter was obviously using Microsoft software for his presentation, because the spelling error is an error in the Microsoft spellchecker dictionary.
I produce an Exclude file which can be used with Microsoft Office products. The Exclude file helps people to determine if they are using the preferred Australian English spelling. There are thousands of Australian English words which can be spelt two or more ways and Microsoft’s spellchecker dictionary correctly enables people to use their chosen spelling. It is just that most people don’t know there is a preferred Australian English spelling. In addition, there are a number of errors in the Microsoft spellchecker dictionary which are also corrected with the use of the Exclude file.
Given the cost and time involved of preparing for the presentations and travelling to multiple cities across Australia, for just $10 this error could have been avoided.
For those who are interested the word used was “fulfillment” which is the American spelling. This spelling is allowed if Australians are using Microsoft software, but the correct spelling is “fulfilment”.
You can obtain the Microsoft Exclude file from the JustLocal site (www.JustLocal.com.au) or use the direct link http://www.justlocal.com.au/clients/mswordexcl.
Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Creator and maintainer of the preferred Australian English spelling dictionary.
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