Re: Supplemental Dictionaries

[cld@xxxxxxxx (Carl Distefano)]

Reply to note from "Michael P. Kube-McDowell"  Sun, 1 Jul 2001 15:07:32 -0400

> Does anyone have (or know of) a supplemental Science &
> Technology dictionary for XyWrite?

Interesting question. None that I know of. The standard XyWrite
file distribution includes BUSINESS.SPL and LEGAL.SPL, but nothing
for science and technology. (The legal dictionary, by the way, is a
waste of RAM; lots of outmoded Latin words, few if any useful
terms.)

It would be fairly easy to compile a personally useful dictionary
using XyWrite's spell-to-file facility. If you have a group of
texts that are likely to contain the desired specialized terms, run
a batch-spell command...

SPELL d:\path\source.txt,d:\path\wordlist.txt

...on each of them and cull the desired words into a .SPL file.
Then add new words as you go.

More comprehensively, one could compile a SCITECH.SPL using a ready-
made word list such as the Academic Press Dictionary of Science and
Technology http://www.harcourt.com/dictionary/browse/. It would
take some time and effort -- the word lists are voluminous and would
have to be downloaded piecemeal, since they're broken down
alphabetically by (sub)topic -- but the result would be widely
useful.

--
Carl Distefano
cld@xxxxxxxx
http://users.datarealm.com/xywwweb/