Antidote 11 User Guide

User Guide / Settings / Language Settings / Word Usage Panel

Word Usage Panel of the Language Settings

Antidote handles words that belong to a particular register, or words that may be inappropriate or offensive, from two different perspectives. Depending on the nature of the text and your familiarity with your readers, inappropriate language may constitute a genuine error or, alternatively, it may be a deliberate stylistic choice. For this reason, detections concerning language are displayed both in the Language view for possible correction, and in the Style (Vocabulary) view for simple verification. The following settings therefore affect both views.

  • These word usage settings are adjusted by default to the intermediate level (except for the Formal and Old-fashioned registers, which are adjusted to the minimum level). To disable all alerts resulting from these settings without having to set each individually to the minimum level, uncheck each general box in this area (in the top left corner).

Register

A word that appears innocuous to us may actually belong to a particular register (formal, old-fashioned, informal or slang). Antidote can detect this and help you avoid unintentionally using inappropriate language.

Here, for each register, you have the choice of three settings:

  • Minimum level: The corrector does not flag any words or expressions belonging to this register.
  • Intermediate level: The corrector informs you if the word or expression belongs to this register in all of its senses (belly is always informal) and remains silent if only one sense of the term belongs to the register in question (the noun smoke is informal only in the sense of cigarette).
  • Maximum level: The corrector flags all words and expressions which may belong to this register.

Offensive terms

When this box is checked, Antidote will flag four classes of offensive terms: words that constitute a slur or are socially taboo (e.g. yid); informal words that are offensive (e.g. jackass); words that are vulgar (e.g. shit); and words that are not polite (e.g. matey).

Here, for each category of offensive terms, you have a choice of three settings:

  • Minimum level: The corrector does not flag this type of offensive term.
  • Intermediate level: The corrector informs you if the expression is offensive in all of its meanings (e.g. yid is always offensive to designate a Jewish person) but does nothing if only one of the senses is offensive (e.g. pig is offensive to designate a police officer, but not an animal).
  • Maximum level: The corrector flags all expressions that may be offensive.