Microsoft Office dictation: any way to remove some common homophones?

March 15, 2023 5:21 AM

I want it to default to recording 'check' rather than 'cheque' when I say that word.

I use Outlook and Word as part of my job, and would love to make more use of the dictation function to reduce RSI.

I use the word 'check' quite a lot, and almost never use 'cheque'. MS dictate defaults to 'cheque'.

Similarly I nearly always mean 'draft', but MS dictate defaults to 'draught'.

Is there a way to override particular homophones, or set defaults, so I don't need to go back and replace these words all the time?

I want to use the software when writing lots of short emails, so can't do one "find/replace all" at the end of the day.

Thanks for any insights! Workarounds also welcome, that work in the context of lots of short emails rather than long documents.

posted by Cantdosleepy to Technology (8 answers total)

Is your version of Office on UK English?

How to check (and change) the default language.
posted by basalganglia at 5:35 AM on March 15, 2023 [4 favorites]

From previous questions, the OP appears to live in the UK.
posted by rockindata at 6:09 AM on March 15, 2023

I haven't used the dictation function so this might not work, but if you go to File > Options > Proofing > Autocorrect Options you can add in your own custom values to "Replace text as you type".

Word and Outlook use the same settings for proofing so if you change it in Word and it works, it should work for both Word documents and Outlook emails.
posted by underclocked at 6:26 AM on March 15, 2023

Response by poster: Thanks for the suggestions!

underclocked, sadly that doesn't work. When I type those words via keyboard it now autocorrects, but it doesn't apply this to dictation.

baselganglia and rockindata, my language is already set to 'English (United Kingdom) '. The 'spoken language item in the dictate mini menu is also 'English (United Kingdom)'.
posted by Cantdosleepy at 6:40 AM on March 15, 2023

If you want “check” instead of “cheque,” you need to change your language preferences to ‘English (United States)’.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:54 AM on March 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

(UK speaker here: I can think of many reasons why the OP wouldn't want to change the language preference to US English just for the sake of this one word.)
posted by altolinguistic at 7:02 AM on March 15, 2023 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Does something like this work? (Those instructions are for Windows 10, but hopefully there's a similar Speech Dictionary available on your system.)
posted by trig at 7:25 AM on March 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: trig, that is nearly amazing!

I can indeed use the 'speech dictionary' in the system-wide speech recognition app to remove 'cheque' and 'draught'.

Sadly this speech recognition app is unrelated to the dictate function within Office itself, and the actual speech recognition seem less good so far, but it is apparently trainable and improves over time. Thanks!
posted by Cantdosleepy at 7:56 AM on March 15, 2023 [1 favorite]