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Article #2981

Perils of spelling checkers

#2981
From: Richard A. O'Keefe
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1988 03:32
22 lines
1409 bytes
Raghu Ramakrishnan has kindly pointed out that in a recent message
of mine I misspelled the word "epistolary".  It's worse than that;
I've apparently been mispronouncing it for years as well.  Both
the "Collins New Zealand Compact English Dictionary" and the
"Websters II New Riverside University Dictionary" agree that the
word is "epistolary".

The unfortunate thing is that I *did* use the UNIX spelling checker
on the message, but seeing that it didn't know "defuse" either, I
thought it simply didn't know the word.  What would have happened
if I had used the "look" command?  (For the benefit of those who
didn't already know, "look prefix" prints out all the words in the
UNIX dictionary which start with "prefix".  It's a good way to
check the spelling of words you are in doubt of.)  Well, I tried it.
	% look episto
	epistolatory
Which is wrong.

Anyone have a good dictionary floating around?
Anyone have a copy of the Springer LNCS book "Computer Programs
for Spelling Correction" they don't want?  (The last time I checked
it was still out of print.)
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Message-ID: <650@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-unix!quintus!ok

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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sri-unix!quintus!ok
From: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog
Subject: Perils of spelling checkers
Message-ID: <650@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Date: 15 Feb 88 03:32:40 GMT
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA
Lines: 22