Xref: utzoo misc.wanted:12239 comp.sources.wanted:14224 alt.sources.wanted:694
Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!samsung!munnari.oz.au!csc.anu.oz.au!csis!ken
From: ken@csis.dit.csiro.au (Ken Yap)
Newsgroups: misc.wanted,comp.sources.wanted,alt.sources.wanted
Subject: Re: Spelling checker file wanted
Message-ID: <1990Nov25.222557.16593@csis.dit.csiro.au>
Date: 25 Nov 90 22:25:57 GMT
References: <1990Nov21.215111.8311@sq.sq.com> <731@isgtec.UUCP>
Organization: CSIRO Division of Information Technology
Lines: 23

>[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!

This is easier said than done. You'd also have to separate out all the
discipline specific words. The classic example I read about is where
"action" becomes "cation".

In the final analysis it might be better to catch the common mistakes
and fix the doubtful ones by hand.