4BSD/usr/man/cat1/spell.1

SPELL(1)            UNIX Programmer's Manual             SPELL(1)



NAME
     spell, spellin, spellout - find spelling errors

SYNOPSIS
     spell [ option ] ...  [ file ] ...

     spellin [ list ]

     spellout [ -d ] list

DESCRIPTION
     _S_p_e_l_l collects words from the named documents, and looks
     them up in a spelling list.  Words that neither occur among
     nor are derivable (by applying certain inflections, prefixes
     or suffixes) from words in the spelling list are printed on
     the standard output.  If no files are named, words are col-
     lected from the standard input.

     _S_p_e_l_l ignores most _t_r_o_f_f, _t_b_l and _e_q_n(1) constructions.

     Under the -v option, all words not literally in the spelling
     list are printed, and plausible derivations from spelling
     list words are indicated.

     Under the -b option, British spelling is checked.  Besides
     preferring _c_e_n_t_r_e, _c_o_l_o_u_r, _s_p_e_c_i_a_l_i_t_y, _t_r_a_v_e_l_l_e_d, etc., this
     option insists upon -_i_s_e in words like _s_t_a_n_d_a_r_d_i_s_e, Fowler
     and the OED to the contrary notwithstanding.

     Under the -x option, every plausible stem is printed with
     `=' for each word.

     The spelling list is based on many sources, and while more
     haphazard than an ordinary dictionary, is also more effec-
     tive in respect to proper names and popular technical words.
     Coverage of the specialized vocabularies of biology, medi-
     cine and chemistry is light.

     Pertinent auxiliary files may be specified by name argu-
     ments, indicated below with their default settings.  Copies
     of all output are accumulated in the history file.  The stop
     list filters out misspellings (e.g. thier=thy-y+ier) that
     would otherwise pass.

     Two routines help maintain the hash lists used by _s_p_e_l_l.
     Both expect a list of words, one per line, from the standard
     input.  _S_p_e_l_l_i_n adds the words on the standard input to the
     preexisting _l_i_s_t and places a new list on the standard out-
     put.  If no _l_i_s_t is specified, the new list is created from
     scratch.  _S_p_e_l_l_o_u_t looks up each word in the standard input
     and prints on the standard output those that are missing
     from (or present on, with option -d) the hash list.



Printed 11/10/80                                                1






SPELL(1)            UNIX Programmer's Manual             SPELL(1)



FILES
     D=/usr/dict/hlist[ab]: hashed spelling lists, American &
     British
     S=/usr/dict/hstop: hashed stop list
     H=/usr/dict/spellhist: history file
     /usr/lib/spell
     deroff(1), sort(1), tee(1), sed(1)

BUGS
     The spelling list's coverage is uneven; new installations
     will probably wish to monitor the output for several months
     to gather local additions.
     British spelling was done by an American.










































Printed 11/10/80                                                2