Is anyone having problems with Dictation in Yosemite?

Dictation on OS X 10.11.4 automatically recognizes “scratch that,” without any custom shortcut configuration necessary. Setting up command+Z as a shortcut for Dictation use disables the standard Edit menu : Undo shortcut that is used by nearly every application on OS X.

Okay, bear with me—I'm a new Mac user. First, where is "Scratch that" on the Show Commands menu? Second, "Undo that" still works for me in Office apps and email. What is it that's disabled? I rarely use dictation outside of Word and email, so I haven't noticed a problem elsewhere.

The Show Commands menu isn't exhaustive, and as I mentioned, the list of available commands will morph to others simply by changing the selected application that you are using with Dictation. I believe that Nuance was behind the Apple Dictation technology, so “scratch that” may not be in the commands list, but is recognized just the same. Like ET phoning home.

As I mentioned, it is standard practice that every Mac application uses command+Z keyboard shortcut on the application edit menu for the Undo command. If you never need to press command+Z to undo content entered in an application, then you certainly can set your keyboard shortcut to that command sequence.

Here is a list of available OS X keyboard shortcuts. Individual applications will have their own list.

I do use Cmd+Z on a daily, if not hourly, basis. My assigning that keystroke sequence to a custom dictation command doesn't seem to have affected the function of Cmd+Z in other apps. I get what you're saying now, though. Adding a "Scratch this" command was a belt-and-suspenders move. Thanks for your helpful reply!

Sounds potentially quite helpful, and I look forward to experimenting with the variations on this command. However there seems to be a problem in determining the reference. How much text will be affected at any particular time?

My suggestion was supposed to be a kind of temporary mode switch. The next words and phrases would be compared to the recently dictated words and phrases seeking a minimal-change alignment and biased by the understanding that some of the recent words are probably incorrect, unless the correction indicates that new words are being inserted. Perhaps a bell-and-whistle, but I think it should be possible to recommend words that are being spoken with extra stress as the locus of the correction. (Maybe there should be a "Major correction" command and mode, too, though I think that can probably be handled with the select sentence and paragraph commands.

This worked for me just fine. Now the microphone has a label underneath it saying the United States. Why? I do not know ,but it works now.