term% cat index.txt SPELL(1) General Commands Manual SPELL(1)
NAME
spell, sprog - find spelling errors
SYNOPSIS
spell [ options ] ... [ file ] ...
aux/sprog [ options ] [ -f file ]
DESCRIPTION
Spell looks up words from the named files (standard input default) in a
spelling list and places possible misspellings—words not sanctioned
there—on the standard output.
Spell ignores constructs of troff(1) and its standard preprocessors.
It understands these options:
-b Check British spelling.
-v Print all words not literally in the spelling list, with deriva‐
tions.
-x Print on standard error, marked with every stem as it is looked
up in the spelling list, along with its affix classes.
As a matter of policy, spell does not admit multiple spellings of the
same word. Variants that follow general rules are preferred over those
that don't, even when the unruly spelling is more common. Thus, in
American usage, ‘modelled', ‘sizeable', and ‘judgment' are rejected in
favor of ‘modeled', ‘sizable', and ‘judgement'. Agglutinated variants
are shunned: ‘crewmember' and ‘backyard' cede to ‘crew member' and
‘back yard' (noun) or ‘back-yard' (adjective).
FILES
/sys/lib/amspell
American spelling list
/sys/lib/brspell
British spelling list
/bin/aux/sprog
The actual spelling checker. It expects one word per line on
standard input, and takes the same arguments as spell.
SOURCE
/rc/bin/spell
the script
/sys/src/cmd/spell
source for sprog
SEE ALSO
deroff(1)
BUGS
The heuristics of deroff(1) used to excise formatting information are
imperfect.
The spelling list's coverage is uneven; in particular biology, medi‐
cine, and chemistry, and perforce proper names, not to mention lan‐
guages other than English, are covered very lightly.
SPELL(1)