From: umcho000@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Connie Cho)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps
Subject: Re: Word Dictionary Wrong?!?!?
Date: 8 Apr 92 14:54:17 GMT
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

In article <12392@umd5.umd.edu> amunn@macbeth.umd.edu (Alan Munn) writes:
>In article <167C0773A.GILMART@LSTC2VM.stortek.com> GILMART@LSTC2VM.stortek.com (Paul Gilmartin) writes:
>>>In article <1992Apr3.154246.21468@ee.rochester.edu> wengler@ee.rochester.edu (Mikey) writes:
>>>|I'm getting no error on the word 'dependant'
>>>
>>>I won't claim there aren't cases where the Word dictionaries are wrong,
>>>but this isn't one of them.
>
>[various people have kindly or not so told poor Mikey that you can
>spell 'dependent' any way you like, so Word is right]
>
>>Now that the original poster has been suitably humiliated, I'd like to take
>>his side a little further.  While either "dependent" or "dependant" may be
>>acceptable according to a sufficiently comprehensive dictionary, it's poor
>>style to use both in the same document.  I know, I said "style", not
>>"spelling", but it would surely be a desirable feature of a spelling checker
>>to note use of a secondary spelling, and ask me which alternative I wish to
>>use for the rest of the document.
>
>I think this should soon move to alt.english.usage, but here goes
>anyway.  Spell checkers are only that -- spell checkers.  The don't
>parse your text to see what you really meant or anything like that.
>Given this, the fewer word the better, since if you have more esoteric
>words in the dictionary you have more likelyhood of a match between an
>esoteric word and a badly spelled mundane word.  This is the gist of
>your argument, I take it.
>
>However, we have a problem.  As far as I know (after consulting one
>dictionary) 'dependent' and 'dependant' are not alternative spellings
>of the same word (i.e. not just a style difference).  Rather,
>'dependant' is a Noun (alternatively spelt 'dependent'), while
>'dependent' is an adjective (with no alternative spelling).  The
>primary spelling of the Noun is with an 'a' while the only spelling of
>the adjective is with an 'e'.  Since the spell checker can't tell
>adjectives from nouns, surely you would want both in there and hope
>for the best.
>
>'the' is a *terrible* spelling of 'then' (and vice versa) but
>spellcheckers can never catch that mistake, which, although a little
>more extreme, is really of the same ilk.
>
>>Likewise, it would be useful if the user dictionary could suppress entries
>>in the main dictionary which are prohibited by local styles.  For example,
>>a friend doing her dissertation lately faced a departmental rule that all
>>French words should appear with correct accents.  Word dictionary contains
>>many common French terms (e.g. "siecle") without accents, and there's no
>>way we can overrule Word and say we prefer not to tolerate "dependant" or
>>unaccented "siecle".
>
>This is true, and it might be nice.  Perhaps what really is needed is
>a real dictionary editor, so that we can create our own dictionarys
>fairly easily.  Don't tell me Nisis has one... :-) 
>
>
>Alan Munn

Ah, now what you are looking at is no longer the spelling checker,
but is the grammar checker. I don't use Word anymore, and haven't
seen Word 5, but I suppose I should ask whether Word 5's
grammar checker can catch the 'dependent' vs. 'dependant' uses.

BTW, the speller does catch 'independant', doesn't it?

CKC
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps