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List:       kde-i18n-doc
Subject:    Re: Myspell support
From:       Jacob Sparre Andersen <sparre () nbi ! dk>
Date:       2003-03-19 12:47:01
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Federico Cozzi wrote:
> On Wed, 19 Mar 2003, Jacob Sparre Andersen wrote:

> Well, depending on your definition of "official", you can
> download OpenOffice dictionaries from
> http://whiteboard.openoffice.org/lingucomponente/download_dictionary.html
>
> Given that no other project except OpenOffice (*) uses
> MySpell, I guess that those are the only existing MySpell
> dictionaries, so in some sense are "official".

That is not in any way what I mean by official.  Then the
Italian dictionary for Aspell that comes with Red Hat would
also be official.  An official dictionary is - in my use of
the word - one that is published by the authority appointed
by the government to maintain an official dictionary of a
language (like Dansk Sprognævn publishes
"Retskrivningsordbogen" and Svenska Akademien publishes
"Svenska Akademiens ordbok").

> Moreover, IIRC MySpell format has deviated from Ispell's,
> particularly in the area of elision, which is very
> important for Italian language.

I was not aware of that (that Myspel can handle "elision",
not that it is important in Italian).

> Let me be clear about dictionaries: I think that they are
> very useful in a word processor... and that's all.

What else can you use them for?  (except just looking single
words up)

> Even if Ispell is a very old software, I guess its Italian
> dictionary has never been used that much, and only by
> "scientific" people writing LaTeX (who are used to double
> checking their output anyway, spellchecker
> notwithstanding). On the other hand, a word processor is
> used by a much broader group of people, who demand a 100%
> correct dictionary. That's why I think that using
> OpenOffice dictionaries could be good.

I run practically all text I write on a computer (also my
Italian homework and my e-mail) through a spell checker
(Aspell or Ispell depending on which computer I happen to be
using).  I would never assume that a text is correct, just
because a spell checker can't find any mistakes in it.  And
I will generally also use my own judgement whenever my spell
checker claims that it has found a misspelling in my text.
(but I know that this is not always how people behave)

Greetings,

Jacob
-- 
ACRONYM: A Contrived Reduction Of Nomenclature Yielding Mnemonics
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