To wish people would proof-read their posts to pick up auto-correct fails.

[UnaCorda]

I'm not talking about SPAG errors, but the seemingly endless posts these days which are either full of incomprehensible gobbledygook or are immediately followed by a subsequent post reading "DD, not Dad" or "precious, nor precise" or "car, not cat", "carton, not cartoon", "lounging, not longing", "prorogues, not Portuguese", etc., etc., etc.

Is it asking too much to expect people to quickly scan what they've typed before pressing "post" so that threads don't become annoyingly cluttered with people's auto-correct corrections?

OP "To wish people would proof-read their posts"...

Really? It's proof-edit and proofread, yer nit picking wally.

Away with you to Pedants' Corner, and draw upon their wisdom.

(Perhaps not. To be fair, they always strike me as lovely people over there.)

Why don’t we have an edit function? Has it ever been explained?

I believe it's something to do with the potential to change the meaning of a post mid-discussion in order to make other people seem unreasonable (or to make yourself not seem unreasonable).

How so many other forums manage with an edit function, I don't know.

You can have time-limited edit functions that allow, say, two minutes to edit a post. Several forums I use have this feature.

Hmmm. I think that’s a fairly weak argument, to be honest. I used to post a lot on another forum - the edit function there could only be used for a short time after posting (a few minutes) and an edited post was labelled as such so everyone could clearly see that changes had been made.

I can see the argument against free-for-all editing, but with limitations placed on the function and edits being visible, I can’t see the problem, myself. Hey ho.

(I do realise you were relaying the reasoning as given and not making the case yourself, OP).

Really? It's proof-edit and proofread, yer nit picking wally.

According to mrproofread.com both are acceptable (as also is "proof read").

Mumsnetters have been asking for an edit function for 10, 15 years. If they had introduced one, I might be able to bring myself to care about minor typos or autocorrections.

Re: proof-read vs proofread, the latter will certainly be the only correct version in the future, but the hyphenated version will persist for some time yet, as it's a relatively recent compound word (by relatively recent I mean about 200 years old).

According to mrproofread.com both are acceptable (as also is "proof read").

That is fucking hilarious to see mrproofread quoted as some kind of academic authority. Must try harder.

My finger tends to accidentally hit the post button begore I'm fin

That is fucking hilarious to see mrproofread quoted as some kind of academic authority. Must try harder.

Didn't see any references in your post...

Source Minty?
Hope it's not mrproofread.

I use the app, where there's no preview. I often spot errors and typos as it's loading to post, when it's too late

Some of the auto corrects make me laugh - Benidorm was today's!

@dorisdances I totally agree. Auto correct has provided comedy gold on numerous occasions

You created a thread looking down your nose at other people's spelling and writing Una.

So YABU asking other people to provide authorities when you are stuck on mrproofread as your gospel.

People outside/new to the profession often hyphenate it. It's following the usual pattern where things go from being an open compound, to hyphenated, to closed up.

As for source, look at any professional proofreading organisation: the Society of Editors and Proofreaders, Editorial Freelancers Association, Editors' Association of Canada. They all spell it as one word as that's the industry standard. I am in groups with thousands of editors and proofreaders and the only ones that hyphenate are newbies But it's certainly not 'wrong' for someone outside the industry to hyphenate it, even if it does make me wince a little

You created a thread looking down your nose at other people's spelling and writing Una.

No, I wasn't looking down my nose people's writing and I specifically said, "I'm not talking about SPAG errors".

Will henceforth refer to proofreading, not proof-reading.

I use the app, where there's no preview.

Interesting. I didn't know the app doesn't have a preview function. That would explain a lot.

As Des said, "It's following the usual pattern where things go from being an open compound, to hyphenated, to closed up."

So if you read your grandparents' books, you will see "ice-cream" and "to-day" and "week-end" -- words which are all nicely glued up now.

For me it's not the errors themselves that are annoying (as I usually don't notice them or I quickly work out what the poster meant to write) but the correction posts are annoying and really disrupt the flow of the thread. They're often several posts further down from the original error - as if anyone's going to still be puzzling what pp autocorrectmumof3 meant when she told her mil to duck off