[seqfan] spell check programs

[David Newman]

I apologise if this posting is too far off topic, but I couldn't resist.

One of the things that mathematicians do is to make substitutions and this
is what spell-check programs are meant to do.  Sometimes it is easy to see
what rules they are using, and sometimes the reason for a particular
suggested substitution is obscure to say the least.  I'd appreciate it if
anyone can give me an explanation for the following.  I was using the
Internet Explorer and the spell-check in gmail.  I wrote the word
"mepivacaine," which is the name of an anesthetic drug.  The spell check
program didn't like this word and made one suggestion for substitution,
which I won't reveal here.  If any of you would care to try this and report
the result to me, I'd appreciate it.  If anyone can explain this weird
behaviour I'd like to know.