[seqfan] Re: spell check programs

[Alex Meiburg]

I tried this (in IE, in Gmail), and although it did highlight the word, it
didn't offer any suggestions. Is this a question about what kind of
algorithms spell checkers use to create their suggestions...?

-- Alexander Meiburg

2015-07-01 16:39 GMT-07:00 David Newman <davidsnewman at gmail.com>:

> 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.
>
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