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How Does Spell Check Work?
Name: Larry
Status: educator
Grade: 9-12
Location: Outside U.S.
Country: USA
Date: Fall 2011
Question:
How does spellcheck work?
Replies:
Hi Larry,
Spell check works much like how one uses a dictionary, where the
computer (you) uses what is called a database of words (dictionary)
and searches through letter by letter and does a compare.
This database can be extended to include synonyms, antonyms, and
grammatical examples of various contexts to include nouns, verbs and
adjectives.
It is the database that is key to bringing the knowledge to the
computer on how spell checking is performed.
-Alex Viray
Larry
Spell check is just another computer program that
Reads in the first, or next word in a text and compares its letter sequence
to a dictionary, which may be a big data base.
Unfortunately, spell checkers can't read the context of the messages and may
confuse words with double spellings, like "role" and "roll", "their" and
"there" etc., etc.
Some spell checkers use rule based processing to check grammar. This is a
type of Artificial Intelligence programming that has kind of hit a wall as
far as researching advancement.
Sincere regards,
Mike Stewart
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Update: June 2012
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