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From: billr@tekred.TEK.COM (Bill Randle)
Newsgroups: net.sources.bugs
Subject: Re: ispell incorrectly handles plurals (or is that plurales?)
Message-ID: <1038@tekred.TEK.COM>
Date: Mon, 9-Mar-87 18:02:16 EST
Article-I.D.: tekred.1038
Posted: Mon Mar  9 18:02:16 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 10-Mar-87 22:15:17 EST
References: <292@desint.UUCP>
Reply-To: billr@tekred.UUCP (Bill Randle)
Distribution: world
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR.
Lines: 57

Thanks to Geoff for finding the correct qualification to use in the test
in s_ending() in good.c.  This will properly report bad -es endings,
but unfortunately will not suggest a correct alternative.  Also,
some words that are correctly spelled are still reported as bad.
This is a test file that I ran thru ispell:
	***************
This is a ispell test for plurals.  Many activitys have misspelled
words.  It should also catch activityes and hawkes and do something.
This one is correct: activities.
	***************
Ispell as modified with Geoff's changes and without the additional
changes I submitted at the same time shows:

activitys -->
  0. activity

activityes -->

hawkes  -->
  0. ---
  1. ---
  2. hawks
  3. ---

activities -->

Note that the alternative lookup  finds "hawks" because it is a single
letter change (drop the 'e') away from "hawkes".  Although "activities"
is a single letter change (switch 'y' to 'i') from "activityes", the
"-ies" plural ending is not recognized as a good word.

If you merge the changes I suggested with the proper qualification as
suggested by Geoff [the other changes were a few more lines in
s_ending() and a new routine wrongplural() in ispell.c], ispell shows:

activitys -->
  0. activity
  1. activities

activityes -->
  0. activities

hawkes  -->
  0. ---
  1. ---
  2. hawks
  3. ---

[activities does not show as bad]

Now I will be the first to agree that this may be kludegy (sp?) but
it is helpful for people who have problems with -yxx and -ixx endings.
-- 

	-Bill Randle
	Tektronix, Inc.
	billr@tekred.TEK.COM