Re: [PATCH] kernel source spellchecker

Jared Daniel J. Smith
2003-03-02T16:51:30Z

Regarding these two cautious comments:

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I wouldn't go that far. Better give a list of speling mistakes (file/line)
and fix them by hand. It won't need to be done more than occasionally, so
the overhead is not too bad. --Dr. Horst H. von Brand

It might also be worth adding a list of 'suspect' spellings -- which
require human intervention. Such items might include 'indices=indexes'
and 'erratum=errata' although you can't do it automatically because
sometimes the right-hand side is actually correct. --David Woodhouse
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I fully agree.

I have tried to automatically spell-check long, complex texts for years,
with numerous algorithms; all of them fail for one reason or another,
and I find that the only proper way to do it is the tedious work by hand.

Even a single lost pun because of overenthusiastic spellchecking is
not worth the cleanup. I would prefer to see typos than lose a single
intentional 'misspelling'. It would be best if you posted all changes
somewhere so that they could be verified manually.

Consider the following:

alignment=alignement
alignmement is French; is this intentional?

constants=konstants
konstants is German; is this intentional?

consumer=comsumer
comsumer is a neologism: http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue5_5/henshall/

Converted=Coverted
is it a pun on something 'hidden' or is it something transformed?

descriptor=decriptor,desciptor
is it descriptor or decrypter?

invocation=invokation
invokation is German; is this intentional?

negative=negativ
negativ is a legitimate non-English word; is this intentional?

signaled=signalled
signaling=Signalling
signaling=signalling
signalled is a legitimate alternate spelling of signaled.

succeeded=succeded
succeded could also be a typo for 'succeed'

through=throught,throuth
throught could also be a typo for 'thought'

writable=writeable
writeable is a legitimate alternate spelling of writable

Thank you,

-Jared