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AnotherCat · 07-08-2014, 11:09 PM

Ahhh, the Menu or Application key - the least worn key on keyboards, I wasn't aware that anyone used it so it didn't click

. As I said I am not a shortcut key user. It does not as a matter of course mimic the mouse right click context menu so its behaviour may be different.

Regarding hyphens I am aware that Sigil and Editor spell checks work differently for hyphenated words. Given all the trickies such as picking up words that are not hyphenated but should be, I, in editors, normally do a search on "-" and assess each case (a search I find I normally need to do anyway to rationalise "-"s, ems and ens) rather than use the spellchecker.

As an example of trickies, and taking your example of the word "helter", is that helter is in fact a valid word by itself which will be come across if editing old text (it is an old form of "halter"). When editing text (such as OCR'ed) there are lots of others similar such as old spellings and hyphenations of words and the author's own rendering as was originally published, and so when doing hyphen checks I also have the big OED running as well. Also I am often unclear as to what are the usages of hyphens for a particular even modern word combination and spellcheckers just give some of the alternatives in a list, whereas the OED descriptions and etymology allows judgement as to the best choice to be applied according to the usage in the particular prose.

So, for example, as can be seen above and in other posts, I have a habit of using the word spellchecker when writing informally, whereas the OED tells me that usage is "spell-check" and "spell checker". I don't use Sigil anymore but if one tries putting "spellcheck" "spell checker" "spell-checker" "spell-check" into a MSWord (2007 in my case) document one will find that it only finds, apparently incorrectly, one of those words to be incorrect. In my experience most spellcheckers will allow almost any hyphenation of two valid words as being correct. For example MSWord (2007) accepts "tall-short" and "green-sky" as being valid, the OED does not, however there is no reason why an author could not just invent and use them in their prose (perhaps to come into later common usage) in which case the ebook should follow that.

I think perhaps where I am differing is that I see the finding of the likes of hyphenated words as being trivial (after all, even a simple search for "-" finds them most reliably no matter what context they are used in) and so really don't care how a spellchecker does it. But the identification of whether the word should be hyphenated or not, or even concatenated in the particular context of the prose is not trivial and is something that no spellchecker can solve without being a full blown dictionary (such as the OED); and finding words that are not hyphenated, but should be, is another challenge (and so is finding the likes of homophones).

Note, I am not averse to, nor am I intending to denigrate, any effort towards improving Editor's or any other spellchecker, nor criticising the methods of other users, but am rather just stating how I go about some of the matters that have arisen or matters I encounter which complicates and reduces their competence when using them.

Whew, I reckon I need a tinny after that. You might too

.

07-08-2014, 11:09 PM	#23
AnotherCat .... Posts: 1,547 Karma: 18068960 Join Date: May 2012 Device: ....	Ahhh, the Menu or Application key - the least worn key on keyboards, I wasn't aware that anyone used it so it didn't click . As I said I am not a shortcut key user. It does not as a matter of course mimic the mouse right click context menu so its behaviour may be different. Regarding hyphens I am aware that Sigil and Editor spell checks work differently for hyphenated words. Given all the trickies such as picking up words that are not hyphenated but should be, I, in editors, normally do a search on "-" and assess each case (a search I find I normally need to do anyway to rationalise "-"s, ems and ens) rather than use the spellchecker. As an example of trickies, and taking your example of the word "helter", is that helter is in fact a valid word by itself which will be come across if editing old text (it is an old form of "halter"). When editing text (such as OCR'ed) there are lots of others similar such as old spellings and hyphenations of words and the author's own rendering as was originally published, and so when doing hyphen checks I also have the big OED running as well. Also I am often unclear as to what are the usages of hyphens for a particular even modern word combination and spellcheckers just give some of the alternatives in a list, whereas the OED descriptions and etymology allows judgement as to the best choice to be applied according to the usage in the particular prose. So, for example, as can be seen above and in other posts, I have a habit of using the word spellchecker when writing informally, whereas the OED tells me that usage is "spell-check" and "spell checker". I don't use Sigil anymore but if one tries putting "spellcheck" "spell checker" "spell-checker" "spell-check" into a MSWord (2007 in my case) document one will find that it only finds, apparently incorrectly, one of those words to be incorrect. In my experience most spellcheckers will allow almost any hyphenation of two valid words as being correct. For example MSWord (2007) accepts "tall-short" and "green-sky" as being valid, the OED does not, however there is no reason why an author could not just invent and use them in their prose (perhaps to come into later common usage) in which case the ebook should follow that. I think perhaps where I am differing is that I see the finding of the likes of hyphenated words as being trivial (after all, even a simple search for "-" finds them most reliably no matter what context they are used in) and so really don't care how a spellchecker does it. But the identification of whether the word should be hyphenated or not, or even concatenated in the particular context of the prose is not trivial and is something that no spellchecker can solve without being a full blown dictionary (such as the OED); and finding words that are not hyphenated, but should be, is another challenge (and so is finding the likes of homophones). Note, I am not averse to, nor am I intending to denigrate, any effort towards improving Editor's or any other spellchecker, nor criticising the methods of other users, but am rather just stating how I go about some of the matters that have arisen or matters I encounter which complicates and reduces their competence when using them. Whew, I reckon I need a tinny after that. You might too . Last edited by AnotherCat; 07-08-2014 at 11:18 PM.