Oxford Spellchecker & Dictionary

One almost feels that the announcement of “the first ever British English electronic spellchecker”, and one with the “unrivalled spelling authority of Oxford”, ought to commence with a regal fanfare of trumpets. Whilst the introduction of this Oxford University Press CD‐ROM is most welcome, it must be said that at the outset that it is not yet quite deserving of trumpeting.

The publishers claim that the spelling checker and dictionary “fully integrates with Microsoft Office, replacing the Microsoft default”. Spelling is checked against the 2003 edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English, and the spelling checker offers help to...