On Sun, 18 Dec 2005 01:15 pm, elgimpo wrote: > Thank you Malcolm. > > I think the problem is in this case "u" is not a word, but a > letter, whereas "I" is a word. Perhaps it is not worth the > coding effort to only parse the single letters that are really > words such as "a" and "I".
I think it is not so much a matter of coding effort but that in many document contexts single letters do legitimately appear whether or not we consider them as real words. To exclude acceptance of single letter words by spell checkers just leads to too many false alarms. How else does one refer to a letter of the alphabet except as a single letter, and in my dictionary single letters appear as entries in the same format as other words so I am rather skeptical of the contention that something like, say "j" is not a real word. > > I read so many reviews which state that the spell checker in > StarOffice is "better" than the one in OO. I don't really have > the linquistic background to evaluate these two spell > checkers. Is it your opinion that the OO spell checker is > equal to or better than the StarOffice version. I read in a > forum that StarOffice just switched to Franklin for the Spell > Checker in version 8. > I have no idea, I haven't used StarOffice for many years. What I do find objectionable are applications which after setting the default dictionary to International English or my local version of English and the locale to GB English, continue to display menus in Americanisms such as "color" and "dialing". OO2 has gone beyond this. > If that is so, why didn't Sun use Myspell? Are they trying to > create some perceived added "value" by having a "professional" > checker? Did they find some limitation in Myspell used in OO? > Commercial organisations find it necessary to differentiate their products. Frequently, but not always, this leads to their product, on balance being, inferior to public domain or open source products. The cost of keeping the ultimate performance in a host of internally maintained products is enormous. When a company has a market the size that MicroSoft has this should be affordable but does not even then appear to achieved all that well. Malcolm Kay > > "Malcolm Kay" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > On Sun, 18 Dec 2005 09:40 am, elgimpo wrote: > >> Malcolm, > >> > >> Sorry, if you took it the wrong way. I'm not meaning to > >> denigrate anything, least of all the spell checker. I'm > >> just trying to understand why the checker suggests " u > >> necessary" as a replacement word. To the best of my > >> knowledge, " u necessary" is not a word. The OpenOffice.org > >> spell checker suggests " u necessary" as a replacement for > >> the mispelling " unecessary" for unnecessary. IMO this is > >> not a valid replacement suggestion. Can you clarify this > >> for me? > > > > Within the context of spell checking "u" is a valid word and > > so is "necessary". Thus the spell checker is suggesting that > > you might have omitted the space between these two valid > > words. > > > > This means that the spell checker looks at the possibility > > that you have accidently concatenated words; as in the > > suggestion of "that that" in place of "thatthat". > > > > It is perhaps arguable that the special case of one of the > > concatenated words being a single letter should be excluded, > > but are you surprised by "I think" being suggested in place > > of "Ithink". > > > > Malcolm Kay > > > >> "Malcolm Kay" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in > >> message > >> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > >> > >> > On Sat, 17 Dec 2005 07:09 am, elgimpo wrote: > >> >> I've noticed that the spell checker in OpenOffice will > >> >> often suggest words that are not words. For example: > >> >> > >> >> u nessary > >> > > >> > Are you sure? > >> > Mine suggests "u necessary"; and whether this is a valid > >> > response is matter of opinion. > >> > All single letter words are considered valid (by most > >> > spell checkers) and "necessary" is a standard word so it > >> > seems to me the suggestion is proper even if somewhat > >> > startling. > >> > > >> > By all means use a different checker if you don't like > >> > this; but please don't use this example to denigrate the > >> > checker. > >> > > >> > Malcolm > >> > > >> >> will be suggested for a mispelling of "unecessary". > >> >> These type of "nonwords" are never suggested in the > >> >> StarOffice 8 spell checker. This kind of "funkiness" > >> >> leads me to suspect that the spell checker in StarOffice > >> >> might be better at identifying and correcting mispelled > >> >> words. Is that true? > >> > >> ----------------------------------------------------------- > >>--- ------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: > >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, > >> e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -------------------------------------------------------------- >------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, > e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
