Hi
Scrivener has just underlined my spelling of ‘homeopathic’ and the spelling suggestions are ‘homoeopathic’ and ‘homoeopath’. These are obviously both incorrect and disturbing!
I think the spelling dictionary needs updating here …
Keith Dixon
‘ic’ can be added to many things to form an adjective, and it’s not unusual for them to be omitted from dictionaries. I certainly don’t see anything disturbing about the related words you cite. On a Mac, you could right-click on ‘homeopathic’ and choose the Learn option; not sure if that works on Windows.
Yep. It works just the same. Right click + “learn spelling”.
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It’s a perfectly correct spelling in the UK and is in fact the historic spelling.
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Thanks for that. Doing some research I see that it is sometimes given as an alternative spelling and has some historic credibility from its German origin - but I’d debate its use these days. I’ve never seen it in use. There’s certainly no reason for Scrivener to flag ‘homeopathy’ as a misspelling and suggest ‘homoeopathy’ as the correct version. ‘Homeopathy’ has apparently been in use in English since 1826!
Perhaps I should add that I’m British and an English speaker/writer for more years than I’d like to admit!
Hi - my issue isn’t with the ‘-ic’ suffix - it’s Scrivener’s suggestion that ‘homEOpathic’ should be changed to ‘homOEOpathic’, and that the first spelling is actually incorrect. A bit of research has shown me that the second version isn’t factually incorrect, but I’ve never seen it in use (I’m old, I’ve read a lot) and the first version is, I would suggest, the de facto spelling these days.
I thought the spelling dictionary was provided by the system software, not Scrivener. But perhaps that has changed. I don’t keep up with all the changes. And I’m not a Windows user, so perhaps it is different from Mac.
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And even if provided by Scrivener, they surely license it and don’t check every single word.
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Yes, I’d forgotten that, thanks. Doesn’t alter the fact that I’m not sure Scrivener should be flagging ‘homeopathic’ as a misspelling!
True! But it may be an older dictionary … ?
In Windows, you go to File/Options/Corrections/Spelling and choose your spelling dictionary, which is then downloaded. I chose English United Kingdom. I don’t know where the dictionary came from but I don’t think it’s a system version because it’s downloaded separately.
Small correction, homoeo- is actually from Greek, not German, and really should be homœo-.
I too am British and oldish (76) but I’ve always been aware of and happy with such spellings. And Scrivener, no matter which dictionary is used, has no control over which words the dictionary flags as misspelt. I have spelling turned off in Scrivener and check in my word processor after compiling.
Mark
Yes, I knew it was from Greek, but the concept of homeopathy was introduced apparently by a German who used the prefix ‘homoo–’ and from there it was translated into English with the same formulation. As you see, I’m now an expert on the etymology of homeopathy … even though I think the whole idea of it is bunk! 
I was going to suggest that to spare yourself the spelling problems, you substitute the word “quackery.” 
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One of my characters works in an ad agency, one of whose clients markets homeopathic ‘drugs’ … no way around it, I’m afraid!
I believe the dictionaries to be designed by Hunspell.
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What I was trying to suggest is that the dictionary is really nothing to do with Scrivener or its developers, so it is not Scrivener that is at fault here (if there is a fault). Ergo, this is probably not the right forum for seeking a correction. But good luck with the writing
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Thanks! I understand Scrivener can’t police each word in the dictionaries they use … but maybe use or license the best dictionaries they can? If this one has homoeopathic as its ‘correct’ version of the word, it suggests the dictionary might be a little out of date. Having said that, I’m grateful to have any dictionary at all.
See if this helps: Enhanced Windows dictionary options?
Personally, I’ve been using the US English Insane dictionary since I discovered it in the Win Scriv beta. There are insane versions for GB English as well. Adds a small delay while loading the dictionary, but it does work a charm.
Actually, these dictionaries come packaged with Scrivener and they are very faulty. There have been multiple issues raised on the forum for other languages already. In my case, both English and Polish dictionaries were so buggy and so limited that I had to copy the relevant language files over from other software that uses the same format (I think LibreOffice uses hunspell). The one that came with Scrivener was useless.
And although the developers obviously did not fill the dictionary files with words, they did make some kind of choice of what to package with their software - and now we have to live with their choice, or do a manual replacement, like I did.