SPELL(1) GENIX Programmer's Manual SPELL(1)
NAME
spell, spellin, spellout - find spelling errors
SYNOPSIS
spell [ option ] ... [ file ] ...
spellin [ list ]
spellout [ -d ] list
DESCRIPTION
Spell 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 collected from the standard input.
Spell ignores most troff, tbl and eqn(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 prefer-
ring centre, colour, speciality, travelled, etc., this option
insists upon -ise in words like standardise, 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 effective in respect to
proper names and popular technical words. Coverage of the special-
ized vocabularies of biology, medicine and chemistry is light.
Pertinent auxiliary files may be specified by name arguments, indi-
cated below with their default settings. Copies of all output are
accumulated in the history file. The stop list filters out misspel-
lings (e.g. thier=thy-y+ier) that would otherwise pass.
Two routines help maintain the hash lists used by spell. Both expect
a list of words, one per line, from the standard input. Spellin
adds the words on the standard input to the preexisting list and
places a new list on the standard output. If no list is specified,
the new list is created from scratch. Spellout 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.
FILES
D=/usr/dict/hlist[ab]: hashed spelling lists, American & British
S=/usr/dict/hstop: hashed stop list
Printed 11/16/83 1
SPELL(1) GENIX Programmer's Manual SPELL(1)
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 prob-
ably wish to monitor the output for several months to gather local
additions.
British spelling was done by an American.
Printed 11/16/83 2