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From: lord+@andrew.cmu.edu (Tom Lord)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: Spelling Dyslexia
Message-ID: <wXKuROy00jaI04XEo9@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: 18 Oct 88 20:19:38 GMT
References: <974@naucse.UUCP>
Organization: Carnegie Mellon
Lines: 28
In-Reply-To: <974@naucse.UUCP>

> *Excerpts from ext.nn.comp.edu: 17-Oct-88 Spelling Dyslexia John*
> *Campbell@naucse.UUC (4032)*
> If you have access to a different spelling checker you might see how
> well it stacks up to the ones listed here.
Just for reference, I have a simple corrector called `splat' that scans
/usr/dict/words for close matches to a given word.  Closeness is measured by the
number of single character insertions and deletions necessary to mutate the
argument word into the dictionary word.

Splat was able to correct 6 of the mistakes:

dramatist
contemporary
period
temporary
eclipse
highest

Note that /usr/dict/words does not contain American, considerable, Eugene,
theater, or highest.  If they were there, splat would have gotten all of them
except Eugene (i.e., with a perfect dictionary, splat would have scored 10
instead of 6).

Splat performs poorly on short words, and would not have gotten stature from
stacher.

-t
lord+@andrew.cmu.edu