Something that irks me: When spellcheckers mark spellings wrong for officially recognized variants.
Example: counsellor and counselor are both correct spellings in English (with slight preference for one-l in America and two l's in UK English).
Both Cambridge and Miriam-Webster list both. There are several such examples where variant spellings are commonly accepted in American English.
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@vwbusguy Thats why spell checkers have US english and UK english dictionaries. If you want it to label both varients as correct then you just load both dictionaries.
@freemo I'm talking specifically about American English here:
https://proofed.com/writing-tips/8-words-variant-spellings/
Not "color" vs "colour". Stuff that are commonly accepted American variants by Miriam-Webster, etc.
@vwbusguy Ahh, in that case we are talking about completeness I guess. In that sense I agree, they tend to lack a lot of words, not just the variants.
@freemo Here's an example off the top of my head.
All of these spellings are recognized in Miriam-Webster, with "aeons" being the only one flagged as being primarily "British" and "Ambience" being the *primary* spelling (ambiance, which the checker accepts, is a recognized variant)
Right, but miriam-webster dictionary is copyrighted... your spellcheck I suspect is open source and even if it isnt likely doesnt have licensing on a dictionary nearly as complete as miriam webster... That may very well be part of the problem. As I said i often notice it has a lack of completeness even outside of variants.
@freemo Miriam Webster dictionary was first published in 1847 based on Webster's dictionary from 1806. Newer entries are copyrighted, sure, but these words have long been in the public domain.
@vwbusguy Words are always in the public domain, dictionaries arent...
If all they did was import the 1806 dictionary you would have tons of incorrect words that have since been removed fromt he language in modern times... So thats not a solution.
Also the latest miriam webster is copyrighted, ALL of it... the fact that every single word in it is int he public domain doesnt mean the dictionary itself is in the public domain, it isnt, nor are entries that are archaic.
@freemo Spell checkers don't normally ship definitions, do they? Recognized common spellings are necessarily in the public domain. How can you retroactively enforce copyright on common word spellings?
Common spellings are in the public domain.. that doesnt mean you can aquire them through a copyrighted source.
What I cant do is take a dictionary copyrighted in 2023, and scrape it and pull out all the spellings... In fact what i also cant do is take a 1807 dictionary and a 2023, scrape them both and only use entries that overlap between the two... Since i used a copyrighted dictionary, 2023 to compile that information it would be in violation, even if the data extracted is from the public domain.
The reasoning is simple, the dictionary **isnt** copyrighting the words themselves, it is copyrighting its curation.. They assemble experts who review old dictionaries and update them, their research into what word is or isnt still a word and what spellings are valid is what is copyrighted, not the actual word itself.
Think of it like this, imagine I wrote a book that was nothing more than a copyrighted list of names of public domain works. Just because the titles and works are in the public domain doesnt mean my list and efforts to make a compilation are in the public domain, it isnt.
@freemo Then pick one of any number of dictionaries in the public domain. I just picked MW as an example. None of the examples I've given are new words or new variants.
@vwbusguy Well thats the problem.. anything that is old enough to be in the public domain you cant pick because it will contain inaccuracies since it wasnt updated.
Any dictionaries that are modern and released into the public domain are likely far less comprehensive and thus lack the alternatives you want in the first place... this assumes there are any good ones in the public domain to begin with.
