Learn Spelling

That right click you can do in Pages, when you finally get tired of seeing those Charlie Brown lips under all the words you make up? Well, I guess it’s Charlie Brown lips in MSWord, but I despise having to open Word, like, a little piece of my soul dies each time I have to (and I have to a lot, for trackchanges purposes), so here’s a grab of the highway dividers (hashmarks? Indian Jones map-in-action lines?) Pages plants underneath the words it doesn’t know:

Anyway, if I’m writing a western-type thing, and for some reason I want that to be one word—maybe I’m working under a 10K-word cap, so am trying real hard to cheat in a way I can claim is stylistic preference or regional usage or actual pronunciation or something—then, instead of having to look at it like that all the time, you tell your Pages to learn it:

Which I’ve been doing for a few years now, I guess. But I think each instance of my Pages’ LocalDictionary has restarted with each new machine, and this one, man, it’s only . . . three, four months old? But? One of those names in there, it’s from a novel I wrote in 2003 or so, that I haven’t opened in ages—definitely not since this machine.

Anyway, I figure everybody’s got one of these. Here’s mine:
afterhours Aggie Anchordoqui anthos ashing babyfood Baylock bleedover breakroom broadhead Brockmeir Brust Bullrider cabrera cabrera’s caliche Camarie Candywolf Celya Cinn conapt cusswords deadfoot deadspace Denora DILLINGER dps Endore facepaint fancydancer fishsticks Flushboy frito Gabe giallo glock gravemounds graverobbing grody haboob haboobs HARKNESS Hawkes Holdeman honeybuns Houndsdale Hunh interfolio Janika’s jerrycan jumpseats Katressa Keithan kickboxer Kissyface Lamesa Larbaliester Limon Lincolns longshot Marasco Marny Midkiff midwived Mondragon Mouthbreathers mun Nachbar Nalene nannycam nosiree Ornti’s paddleboard Pangborne panhead parentheticals payphone Pon pov Proofrock protag pumpjack pumpjacks pushbar racecar Raz Sarry Sayles Schwegel Scripty sdf Sebby sgj shitstorm Siodmak sleepaway Sloacum slurpee slurpees snubnose someshit Sommers speedfreak Sprayberry spraycan staties steepling survivance Tange tarbaby Tark themself Tomball truckstop turnrow undercovers undertaste unflinch unplanting usagi Weissman Whataburger Winnemucca wkshop workboots

Here‘s how to find yours. And, that LocalDictionary isn’t actually where that page says it is, but it’s findable. I already closed that Finder window or I’d map you there.

Anyway, it’s kind of fun. Especially if you’re two pages away from the end of the thing you’re writing and you’re scared it’s not all going to come together so you’re wondering what you can do for ten minutes instead of face that ending.