geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning) (03/10/88)
While working on ispell (yes, it's coming, but not real soon) I stumbled across a non-word in my /usr/dict/words file. The verb form of "accreditation" is "accredit," despite the best efforts of some people to change it. If you're a stickler for accuracy, like me, edit /usr/dict/words to change that entry to "accreditation". -- Geoff Kuenning geoff@ITcorp.com {uunet,trwrb}!desint!geoff
aburt@isis.UUCP (Andrew Burt) (03/11/88)
In article <1693@desint.UUCP> geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning) writes: >...I stumbled across a non-word in my /usr/dict/words file. Brings to mind a word that showed up on a list of five letter palindromes (no, I wasn't bored, I was making a handout about regular expressions with ^\(.\)\(.\).\2\1$ as an example): rever Now, I admit I did find it in the OED. But that was the only dictionary of mine that listed it (of about a half dozen). If I saw this in a document I'd assume it was a misspelling of "revert" or "revere", etc.; and spell allows "revers" as a plural, which probably should be "reverse". This brings up an interesting question: Should /usr/dict/words list words that are technically allowable (listed in some notable dictionary) but are (a) very uncommon and (b) very close to likely misspellings of far more common words -- at the expense of not catching what are probably typos? To my mind, a spelling checker should flag words that are correct over omitting incorrect words. I can't see "but it makes the dictionary complete" argument being used since many common words (in a Unix environment) are missing, such as "filename", "pathname", "stdin",... (Maybe a -u(nix) option to spell is in order... :-) -- Andrew Burt isis!aburt Fight Denver's pollution: Don't Breathe and Drive.
andrey@arizona.edu (Andrey K. Yeatts) (03/26/88)
In article <1693@desint.UUCP>, geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning) writes: | While working on ispell (yes, it's coming, but not real soon) I stumbled | across a non-word in my /usr/dict/words file. The verb form of | "accreditation" is "accredit," despite the best efforts of some people | to change it. If you're a stickler for accuracy, like me, edit | /usr/dict/words to change that entry to "accreditation". | Geoff Kuenning geoff@ITcorp.com {uunet,trwrb}!desint!geoff or else add in one of my favorites: "orientate," if only for the completifaction of verbiation of your lexilogical database. (Excusify me for being in a non-linear mode of epistolization :=) -- Andrey Yeatts Dept. of Computer Science andrey@arizona.edu Univ. of Arizona {allegra,cmcl2,ihnp4,noao}!arizona!andrey Tucson, AZ 85710 (602) 621-2858