From: ibuprofin@painkiller.example.tld.invalid   
      
   On Mon, 10 Jun 2013, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandriva, in article   
   , TJ wrote:   
      
   >My spell check needs to be educated. I was posting in another   
   >newsgroup about operating an OTA TV during an extended power outage,   
   >and I used the word "derecho." Spell check didn't like it. I thought   
   >maybe I had misspelled it, but apparently it was the spell checker   
   >that didn't have a clue.   
      
   Not unexpected -  the word lists that the spell checkers are looking   
   at are based on "common" words.   A common problem with word lists is   
   running into copyright problems, so the norm is to manually compile   
   lists from a large bunch of documents.   Hmmm, how old is this?   
      
     Title        = /usr/dict/words for Linux (linux.words)   
     Version      = 2   
     Desc1        = This is word list containing 45402 words.  Great care   
     Desc2        = has been taken to be sure that this word list is free   
     Desc3        = of copyright.  This list is suitable for English   
     Desc4        = language spelling checkers and as a target for look(1).   
      
   -rw-rw-r-- 1 keeper admin     984 Oct 12  1993 linux.words.2.lsm   
   -rw-rw-r-- 1 keeper admin  138063 Oct 12  1993 linux.words.2.tar.gz   
      
   Another dictionary file I have is   
      
     Welcome to web2 (Webster's Second International) all 234,936 words   
     worth.  The 1934 copyright has lapsed, according to the supplier.   
     The supplemental 'web2a' list contains hyphenated terms as well as   
     assorted noun and adverbial phrases.  The wordlist makes a dandy   
     'grep' victim.   
      
       -- James A. Woods    {ihnp4,hplabs}!ames!jaw   
      
   The clue there is the form of the email address (so-called "bang   
   path") - as well as the version data ("8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93").   
   Neither of those dictionaries has "derecho", nor do the five dead-tree   
   dictionaries I have handy.  But then, they also don't have words like   
   "triode", "pentode", "tetrode" (types of vacuum tubes), "caffeinated",   
   "catenary", "honorific" or "html", never mind dozens of *NIX commands.   
   For that matter, they don't even know about "sbin", let alone have   
   the correct definition of "bin".   
      
   >The only suggestion it could come up with was "chowder."   
      
    0: derelict   
    1: Derek   
    2: derriere   
    3: derrick   
      
   Something seriously out of whack with your spellchequer.   Aside,   
   doesn't it have the capability of so-called "personal" word-lists or   
   dictionaries?   Most of the ones I've used do.   
      
           Old guy   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)