Re: faulty spell checker/dictionary?

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

Carl Distefano wrote:
> Note that STSPELL is
> only needed to fetch the contents of the TEMPORARY spell file from
> memory and write it to disk for editing (e.g., to delete misspelled
> words added to the temporary file by mistake); the temporary spell
> file is not saved to disk, and is thus not available for editing,
> unless you first STSPELL it.
And not available for future use, which was apparently what was wanted.
> Here, though, Avi said that his colleague added an incorrect word to
> her *permanent* business.spl file, by hitting F5 (not F3) during a
> spell check.
Ah, yes. In Xy4, if you try to hit F5 (to add a word permanently) and
you DON'T have a personal.spl file loaded, it stops you cold: Personal
spelling file not loaded. But business.spl, in Xy4, is not binary like
DICT.SPL, but an editable file, only one created by XyQuest/TTG, not
Joe or Jane User. It would seem she didn't have it loaded (or maybe it
had gotten corrupted itself previously) and so the "Save Permanently"
somehow got written to DICT.SPL, trashing it.
>  You don't need to use STSPELL to create these files -- they
> already exist.
Not necessarily always. Suppose (and I just did this to verify it) you
spell check a file with lots of "strange" words in it (what spell
checkers consider strange is another matter). Hit F3 for any you want
to be recognized as legit in the future, then STSPELL mynewsp.spl. A
new personal .spl file is created and stored, and you can then edit it
to refine it. Beats trying to think beforehand of what words might
crop up in that area.
Of course, an even better way is to batch spell to a file and then
sort and edit that file. When I was getting MSS to edit in electronic
form, I would do that, and was forever finding that authors were using
both Czar and Tsar (and not necessarily in quotes either), or using
three different spellings for Ireneus of Lyon.

--
Patricia M. Godfrey
PriscaMG@xxxxxxxx