Xref: utzoo misc.wanted:12208 comp.sources.wanted:14188 alt.sources.wanted:686
Path: utzoo!censor!isgtec!robert
From: robert@isgtec.uucp (Robert Osborne)
Newsgroups: misc.wanted,comp.sources.wanted,alt.sources.wanted
Subject: Re: Spelling checker file wanted
Message-ID: <731@isgtec.UUCP>
Date: 22 Nov 90 18:32:42 GMT
References: <1990Nov21.215111.8311@sq.sq.com>
Sender: news@isgtec.UUCP
Reply-To: robert@isgtec.UUCP (Robert Osborne)
Organization: ISG Technologies Inc. Mississauga Ont. Canada
Lines: 27

In article lee@sq.sq.com (Liam R. E. Quin) writes:
[about a spell checker with all of websters being "great"]
> Actually you'll have a dreadful one.  Almost every possible typing error
> will be listed as an obscure word, an thou so do.  The Shorter Oxford (I
> haven't seen Webster's) lists many of the variant spellings used by Milton
> and Shakespeare, for example.
But if you broke the dictionary into several lists (hopefully not too
costly in terms of lookups) you could give messages like:

alsdkjf: not in dictionary
<old english word>: *VERY OBSCURE* only in The OED
<something greek like>: *OBSCURE* in The OED and Webster's
<something wierd>: *UNCOMMON* not in Standard Dictionary

.ie It's a word, but are you *sure* it's the one you want.

This would be very powerful!

In keeping with the charters of these groups: does any one have source
for a dictionary that breaks down matches this way?

Rob.
(When I worked for the OED Project at UofWaterloo I played with the
 on-line version; just about every random string I typed matched to some
 word in the dictionary!)
--
Robert A. Osborne   ...uunet!utai!lsuc!isgtec!robert or robert@isgtec.uucp