You, Mentality, obviously have no idea what you are talking about. All of the issues you mentioned, are not issues at all. There are many programs out there that have spellchecking capabilities. One of my favorites, is gaim, and instant messenging client that highlights incorrect words if aspell is installed. If aspell is not installed, then the spellchecker does not work. It's completely optional. Now of course, there's no way for mIRC to keep an internal dictionary of all the languages, so that is not an option at all. Aspell has dictionaries available in every language, and it is also open source/freeware. It is very easy for other programs to access its capabilities. First the user installs the program, then installs the dictionary of his/her language, and it's as easy as that. Let me go through your points one by one to correct your mistakes.

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- Different languages - how should mIRC interpret them? Special characters?


As stated before, aspell will highlight incorrect spelling according to the user's dictionary.

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- The time it would take to compile all of the world's dictionaries into mIRC.


I believe this statement has already been destupified.

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- Abbreviations - distinguishing between 'lmao', 'rofl' and so on.


As long as mIRC only highlights the word, this should not be a problem. Otherwise, words can be added to the dictionary very easily.

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- It wouldn't increase people's ability to spell, it would just have a machine do it for them.


This may not be true, when they see a mispelled word, chances are they'll try and correct it. And if it were to be done automatically, that's fine also. It at least would make it legible for other readers.

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- Different types of English - UK/US have different spellings, some completely different words.


This is easily fixed by the user downloading the correct dictionary for his language.

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- Typos are an acceptable part of the IRC world and are just a part of what makes IRC....IRC


IRC is not a place for lazy ignoramuses, IRC is a gateway to communicating with people from around the world. And spelling is a crucial part of written communication.

Good day.

edit: Aspell can be seen at http://aspell.sourceforge.net/