Quote:
Originally Posted by Ea
Sometimes the OCR software mangles things so much it's uncomprehensible, or you just can't guess the right word.
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What's even more insidious is when OCR is combined with a spell checker, and a "mangled" word has been replaced by another word, which "fits in" to the sentence, and yet is totally wrong.
A good example is the Erksine Childers classic spy story "The Riddle of the Sands". Pretty much all the "free" versions of it, PG included, in a paragraph describing the appearance of the cabin of a boat, include a mysterious reference to "banks of yam". I defy anyone to guess what that really should be, without recourse to an original page scan or a printed copy of the book.
The correct text, in case you're wondering, is "hanks of yarn"
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