Spellcheck not catching word

[Sentinel]

I have a bad habit of typing "ot" when I mean to type "to". My fault, fat fingers. But I notice that spellcheck is not always catching it (red underline). Is there anyway for me to fix this?
Also doesn't seem to catch when I type i instead of I (upper case).

[Jeff]

Ok, I've taken a look at this, so here's the situation:

PP performs case-insensitive spell-checking, which I *thought* would explain the 'i' situation, but actually only explains the "ot" situation; so I'll start with the latter.

"ot" is probably not a word, but "OT" can be used as an acronym. With case-sensitivity enabled (more on this in a second), PP will flag "ot". And, I should point out that "to" is not a very high replacement word, but it has some basic intelligence built-in, so once you replace it with "to" it prioritizes it better.

As for 'i', enabling case-sensitivity doesn't help. In fact, any single letter will pass. And, I just thought to test this, but I'm using Firefox right now (with spell-checking) and typing the letter i doesn't indicate it as wrong, either (or any single letter). So I'm presuming that that is the proper way to handle it, and that there may be specific reasons for that logic which I couldn't explain.

Back to "with case-sensitivity enabled" -- you do not have access to that capability, currently. But I will certainly see about adding it as an option, and using it myself to see how much extra annoyance it would cause.

[Sentinel]

Wow. Talk about a well thought out and complete reply. Thank you sir. Very much appreciated.

So what your saying if I understand you correctly is that since OT is a slang kinda thing (like "kinda") it ignores ot because it sees them as them same? But if there was a setting to ignore case then it would catch it, but it probably would also catch things like NM (never mind) and stuff like that?
If that is the case then a setting that allows a person to turn that off or on would be great for me because I almost never use short abbreviations like that in email. Text yes, but email no. I usually spell out the entire word in email. So an option for people would be great and very much appreciated.
Or perhaps a user editable dictionary that would allow me to remove words like OT, NM and stuff like that.

I don't know how much of a problem this is for others but I just can't stop typing ot when I mean to type to. . Just one of those frustrating things when you see it and it causes you to check over your entire email for errors, and that is what spellcheck is supposed to help me not have to do

If you could make that an option that a user could set the way they like that would be great
Even still at least now I know I'm not nuts and that there is a reason. So again many many thanks.

(oddly the spellcheck for this forum software does flag ot and red underlines it but it doesn't red underline OT. Odd that the email spellcheck doesn't.)

[Jeff]

So what your saying if I understand you correctly is that since OT is a slang kinda thing (like "kinda") it ignores ot because it sees them as them same? But if there was a setting to ignore case then it would catch it, but it probably would also catch things like NM (never mind) and stuff like that?

Right. Except it's technically "but if there was a setting to *observe* case then it would catch it". But, you're on the right track as to why I had originally disabled case-sensitivity -- I expect it could cause more annoyances than it would catch. On the other hand, recognizing that Firefox does seem to use case-sensitivity gives me a little more peace of mind.

Or perhaps a user editable dictionary that would allow me to remove words like OT, NM and stuff like that.

Unfortunately, the dictionary is compiled into binary so it can't be easily modified. There's a personal dictionary to add words, but not remove anything from the base dictionary. While I was writing my first response, I did think about mentioning the possibility that an auto-correct could be useful in this case (e.g. something that automatically converts "ot" to "to" and "teh" to "the" and "i" to "I"), but I didn't want to get your hopes up because I don't know when that would ever come to be (almost certainly not v5.0).

(oddly the spellcheck for this forum software does flag ot and red underlines it but it doesn't red underline OT. Odd that the email spellcheck doesn't.)

I believe that the spell-checker functions are built into your webbrowser, not the forum software. But I didn't write the forum software (phpBB), so there's no relationship between that and POP Peeper anyway.

[Sentinel]

Oh well. Worth a try. Thanks again and hopefully you'll figure something out. I'd like you ot.

In my personal opinion the spellcheck dictionary should not have "words" like OT or NM or OTOH (on the other hand) because those are not words in the English language. I think it would be better if those kinds of slang abbreviations for phrases were left out and then it is fairly easy for people to add them in if they wanted to. But I am old.

[mjs]

.....I think it would be better if those kinds of slang abbreviations for phrases were left out and then it is fairly easy for people to add them in if they wanted to. But I am old.

Bingo! Totally agree. .... the red part is the key to your logic. ... but then what do us old folks know!

[Jeff]

Ah, well, I have no problem using established acronyms like fyi, ftr and otoh, but abbreviating words like "you" -> "u" absolutely send me over the edge

Also, I'd like to think that "nm" is an acceptable abbreviation for "nanometer"

[Sentinel]

I just found another word it misses. If I mistype "at" by typing a t it also fails to catch it. Now I know "a" is a word but "t" is not.

I don't know what dictionary database this spellcheck program uses but it ain't English (I know ain't ain't a word either, but if it caught ain't and red underlined it I'd be OK with that ). It must be millennial slang English or something. If so then it would be nice for there to be an "alternative" regular old plain old kings English dictionary that a person could import as an option or something. Just an idea.

[Jeff]

I just found another word it misses. If I mistype "at" by typing a t it also fails to catch it. Now I know "a" is a word but "t" is not.

I actually mentioned this (emphasis via color added):

As for 'i', enabling case-sensitivity doesn't help. In fact, any single letter will pass. And, I just thought to test this, but I'm using Firefox right now (with spell-checking) and typing the letter i doesn't indicate it as wrong, either (or any single letter). So I'm presuming that that is the proper way to handle it, and that there may be specific reasons for that logic which I couldn't explain.

Firefox doesn't flag:
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
ain't

"ain't" may not be considered a word by most people, but it does exist in most dictionaries. I have a physical Webster's dictionary from *1964* and it includes the word "ain't". I would say that just because it's not recognized as an official word doesn't mean it shouldn't exist in a spelling dictionary.

"Selfie" doesn't exist in PP, but does in firefox... (firefox doesn't like "firefox" so that should be "Firefox"; speaking of which, I enabled case-sensitivity by default in the latest v5 alpha as I think that it works better).


What other examples do you have?

[Sentinel]

Hmm. That's interesting. a b c d e ... hey you know what, your right.

And I was being funny about ain't

[Sentinel]

Here's an idea. I don't know if this sounds stupid or not but I figured hey, why not throw it out there.
Is it possible to have 2 different english dictionaries and allow the user to pick one? Right now a lot of programs you can choose between english UK or english US. So maybe you could have a choice of english for young people and english for old people like me.

For example AFD to young people means "away from desk" and would probably not be a misspelled word for you. But for me that means nothing and if I typed afd I would hope that it would catch that and red underline it.

Just an idea. I don't know how hard it would be to implement. Of course upper and lower case differentiation would still be the best idea because AFD and afd could be treated differently. Probably too difficult though.

[Jeff]

POP Peeper has different dictionaries for English-US/GB/CA (and other languages).

PPv5 has enabled case-sensitivity by default (double-checking... confirmed), so I think a lot of the issues you mentioned originally should be addressed.

I've never heard of AFD, but I'm not young. AFK (Away From Keyboard) has been around for a couple decades and is an acronym I'll use myself. Don't think I'd use it in an email, though.... Neither one appears to be in PP's dictionary (nor Firefox's), but it's easy enough for someone to add words (or acronyms) if they want.

[Sentinel]

PPv5 has enabled case-sensitivity by default (double-checking... confirmed), so I think a lot of the issues you mentioned originally should be addressed.

Awesome. Thank you.