[Alpine-info] Re: spellchecker chokes on extra space

[Beartooth]

On Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:53:57 -0500, Benjamin R. Haskell wrote:


> What do you mean "chokes"?  Incorrectly marks a word as misspelled -- or

> something worse, like causing a segfault?


	It treats things like "Here  goes!" as a misspelling of "Here" -- 
and wants me to fuss with it. 
 

> And can you provide an example of something that would cause this?  i.e.

> "Extra  space" or "End of sentence ."?


	I believe both those would, yes. Certain of my correspondents, 
using Beelzebub knows what software, chronically send stuff with numerous 
randomly-located extra spaces.
 

> IIRC, the default is aspell, but it's configurable at both compile- and

> run-time.


	I looked in M > S > C and found it set to /usr/bin/aspell, yes.

	This business of counting spaces is infuriating, inasmuch as it 
costs me a total waste of time over things that few readers will ever 
notice, or care about if they do. Can aspell be reset to ignore 
extraneous spaces? Can it be replaced with some other speller that 
ignores them? Can it at least be set to ignore other people's text in 
replies and forwards??

	After twenty years of grading language homework, and fifteen of 
creating library catalog entries that had to be character-perfect, I 
happen to be good at proofreading. I never used to use a spellchecker at 
all. But my arthritic eyeballs and trifocal fingers (a couple of the 
latter over 50% disabled) create typos hand over fist nowadays, and a 
program that's less trouble than it's worth would be a convenience -- if 
one exists.

-- 
Beartooth Staffwright, PhD, Neo-Redneck Linux Convert