[pmmail-list] Stupid PMMail Tricks

[Tim Roberts]

On Wed, 13 Aug 2003 19:36:43 -0400, Ralph Cohen wrote:
>
>The best thing about PMMail's spelling checker is the fun you can have
>trying to figure out exactly what "logic" it uses to present
>alternatives to a misspelled word.  For instance, I misspelled the word
>"document" writing "documemt" instead, and the replacement suggested by
>the spelling checker was "tagmeme" followed by "tagmemics", "tagmemes",
>etc.  Two questions immediately sprang to mind.  First, what kind of
>programming logic does it take to recommend "tagmeme" as the correct
>spelling of "documemt" 

Soundex.  It's an algorithm that converts words to a "code" that basically 
encodes how the word sounds.   It ignores vowels completely, and sound-alike 
consonants (d and t; c, g, and k) get grouped together.  If you think about the 
way you would pronounce the invented word "docmemt", suddenly "tagmeme" doesn't 
seem so strange.

Soundex is a great algorithm for matching things like last names, where you 
might only have heard it pronounced.  It's not so good for fixing typos.

--
- Tim Roberts, timr@probo.com
  Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.


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