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------- Additional comments from [email protected] Fri Feb 11 17:18:53 
+0000 2011 -------
The word list was pruned of specialized or obscure words, particularly if those
might interfere with finding more common words. As example, 'chough' and
'scoter' are birds, but most people will be interested in typing 'cough' or
'scooter.' Sometimes choices aren't clear. 'Whicker' is a horse's whinny, but
perhaps there is a conflict with 'wicker.' 'Whicker' was removed. Often a
dictionary will list plurals for words ending in 'o' as either -os or -oes, or
words ending in 'a' as -as or -ae. If a dictionary separates the choices with
'or' then both plurals have equal weight, but a spellchecker may help a writer's
consistency by only listing the first choice.

It has not escaped my attention that removing words helps to make room for later
additions, as a number of new words and proper nouns need to be added to keep
the word list current. (May 6, 2009 version, 150,240 words. Current version
146,540 words.) The words 'shalt' and 'spake' are now in the list, but have been
marked with an exclamation point for NO SUGGEST.

Hunspell is good at dividing long words into two, and checking each portion,
useful for a Hungarian spellchecker. It is unable to handle hyphenated words.
For this spellchecker to function properly, users need to install an autocorrect
word list in Open Office, so that when 'paperclipped' is typed, 'paper-clipped'
is automatically substituted. This is also true for some accented words, so that
typing 'elan' produces 'élan.' Unfortunately, Open Office doesn't use the
autocorrect feature this way.

Sources, listed in order of preference.

1) http://www.thefreedictionary.com/
American Heritage Dictionary, and Collins English Dictionary

2) http://dictionary.reference.com/
Random House Dictionary, Collins English Dictionary, Webster's Unabridged 
Dictionary

3) http://www.merriam-webster.com/
Merriam-Webster Dictionary

4) http://oxforddictionaries.com/?attempted=true
The Oxford English Dictionary

Dictionaries often disagree on compound words, or on spelling. Generally the
Random House Dictionary is very good, but it gives a spelling of 'mujahedin.'
Going to an Arabic source to clarify matters only adds to the confusion, as that
site gives seven possible spellings. Other dictionaries use the word
'mujahideen,' so that seems preferable. Because of past problems with WordNet, I
don't accept words with only this single source. WordNet gathers words from the
web. This says nothings about the way people write, only that people are blindly
reproducing the questionable Microsoft spellchecker, which has total dominance
in the U.S.

February 11, 2011

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