Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.bugs.sys5
Subject: Re: Non-word "accreditate" in /usr/dict/words
Message-ID: <7481@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 20 Mar 88 01:33:43 GMT
References: <1693@desint.UUCP> <2222@isis.UUCP> <1338@hoqax.UUCP> <1697@desint.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 13

In article <1697@desint.UUCP> geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning) writes:
-In article <1338@hoqax.UUCP> twb@hoqax.UUCP (BEATTIE) writes:
-> This machine accepts "sincerly" as correctly spelled when it should only
-> accept "sincerely".
-This is because of the optimistic design of spell(1).  Spell has a list of
-suffix rules, which it applies to all words indiscriminately.  A suffix
-that only makes sense on a verb (e.g., -ment) will be applied to nouns,
-adverbs, and adjectives as well.  Thus, for example, spell accepts
-"sincerement" as well as "sincerly" (I just checked).

Spell (at least the System V version) has a "stop list" that can be
tweaked to catch common errors such as "sincerly" that slip through
the net.  Not great, but it works.