Re: IBM Releases 27 Dictionaries/Thesaurii for Xy4-DOS and XyWin

[Wolfgang Bechstein wolfie@xxxxxxxx]

I'd like to add my voice to the chorus of thanks to Robert Holmgren
for directing us to the IBM dictionary site. I trust, however, that
Robert's "blistering rebuke to TTG" remark was made with tongue
placed firmly in cheek. I'd wager that IBM doesn't give a fig about
what TTG does or does not do. The dictionaries are clearly intended
to boost the utility and standing of the Netscape + Communicator
combo in the marketplace (of *free* browser/mailers, that is). The
fact that the dictionaries can be made to work with XyWrite (thanks
not least to Robert's untiring efforts in this regard) is a nice
windfall for us, but the public at large is bound to remain
blissfully unaware of the existence of that mystery player in the
software arena called TTG.

Or am I maybe horribly wrong here? After all, the now very spiffy
looking TTG web site has a headline that reads ≪SmartWords-based
system is Declared a "Hands Down Winner"≫. Clicking on this link
brings up a picture of a no-nonsense type businessman holding a copy
of "TTG News", a publication that from the looks of it is second only
to the NYT in meaty substance. We learn of "enthusiastic reviews"
(for the Wealth Transfer Planning package) and other heartening
developments. There's only one little tiny fly in the ointment: the
most recent date for any information in "TTG News" is February 1998.
But what, I ask you, are a few years in the TTG grand scheme of
things? Dear SmartWords Beta subscribers, take heart and heed my
prophesy: in a mere few years' time, you will open your mail box to
find a gleaming disc containing a very slightly buggy but otherwise
"hands down winner" program , and with luck (and a little help from
Robert) you will even be able to use the IBM dictionaries with it.

Which brings me to the real topic of this message, namely a comment
on the new German dictionary. People not interested in zee Churman
lankvitch can safely skip what follows.

The new 1.7MB DEUTSCH2.DIC available from IBM, unlike the old 2.5MB
Signature file DEUTSCH.DIC indeed follows the rules of the "neue
Rechtschreibung" (a horrible hodgepodge of half-baked attempts at
spelling reform best exemplified by a single example: we are now
supposed to write "Orthografie", turning the Greek "ph" into f but
*not* the "th" into t). Regarding the eszet, the situation is as
follows: eszet is always replaced by "ss" after short vowels (dass,
Kuss, Fluss) but *not* after long ones (gieen, Strae).
The DEUTSCH2 dictionary reflects this. But why is the new file so
much smaller than the old one? Unfortunately, that seems to be
because the thesaurus function was removed! With DEUTSCH2.DIC loaded,
any attempt at calling up synonyms using Robert's SIG_THES.DLG
results in the message "no synonym in dictionary". With the old
DEUTSCH.DIC loaded, synonyms come thick and fast (in fact, the
thesaurus in DEUTSCH.DIC is excellent, often offering more, and more
creative alternatives than most other German thesauri I have known).
Since switching between the two dictionaries is easy ("d ud=DEUTSCH2"
on the command line is all it takes), I intend to keep both around,
using DEUTSCH.DIC as my default speller/thesaurus for German and
activate the new one only when I need to spell check a file according
to the new rules (which, by the way, are not binding, a fact that is
already leading to a "new confusion" with various newspapers
implementing different flavors, and one federal state so far refusing
to implement it in the schools).

Wolfgang Bechstein
wolfie@xxxxxxxx