Stubbornly ignoring misspellings

John Doue · External Since: Dec 20, 2004 Posts: 38

Hi,

Although I have very carefully followed the very clear instructions from
the MVP site http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/ExcludeWordFromDic.htm,
I cannot get Word 03 to recognize as spelling errors, for instance, Noel
in French (which should spell Noël).

I have made sure the exception file is in plain text, one word
misspelled per line and that it is saved under the name MSSP3FR.EXC in
the same directory as my custom.dic file.

I have further made sure I have only one custom.dic file on my disk and
that this file, of course, does not contain the mispelled words. I have
also made sure the custom.dic file is correctly checked as the custom
dictionary.

What next can I do? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Regards
--
John Doue

John Doue · External Since: Dec 20, 2004 Posts: 38

John Doue wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Although I have very carefully followed the very clear instructions from
> the MVP site http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/ExcludeWordFromDic.htm,
> I cannot get Word 03 to recognize as spelling errors, for instance, Noel
> in French (which should spell Noël).
>
> I have made sure the exception file is in plain text, one word
> misspelled per line and that it is saved under the name MSSP3FR.EXC in
> the same directory as my custom.dic file.
>
> I have further made sure I have only one custom.dic file on my disk and
> that this file, of course, does not contain the mispelled words. I have
> also made sure the custom.dic file is correctly checked as the custom
> dictionary.
>
> What next can I do? Any help will be greatly appreciated.
>
> Regards
Sorry for answering my own post but I found a way around the problem by
creating a subdirectory to \proof and moving the custom.dic and
mssp3fr.exc there. For some reason, this works BUT I realize I have a
secondary problem: since words must be written in lower case letters,
the dictionary now does flag the error but proposes only "noël" in lower
case, which in fact would replace a spelling error by another error.

Is there anyway to solve this?

Best regards.

--
John Doue

Thierry Fontenelle [MSFT] · External Since: Aug 26, 2006 Posts: 7

Hi John,

The problem is that "noÃ«l" is also a valid common noun in French. It can
refer to a song sung around Christmas time, or to a gift (the Petit Robert
gives this example, for instance: "donner aux enfants leurs petits noÃ«ls").
This explains why "noÃ«l" in lower case is in the speller lexicon. So you are
not replacing an error by another error, in fact. There is simply a
coincidence between two words, one which, in a given sense, should always be
capitalized, and another, common noun that is not capitalized. It's not
different from the pair pierre (=stone)-Pierre (first name). You could have
the same in English if you wrote "James bond" where "bond" would not be
squiggled by the regular spell-checker because the word also exists in
English as a regular noun.

This being said, I agree with you that Noel without the accent is not a very
frequent first name in French and it would probably be better to only include
the upper-case with the diacritic. We'll definitely think about this for the
next version.

Thanks for your feedback,

Thierry

Thierry Fontenelle [MSFT]
Microsoft Natural Language Group

"John Doue" wrote:

> John Doue wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Although I have very carefully followed the very clear instructions from
> > the MVP site http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/ExcludeWordFromDic.htm,
> > I cannot get Word 03 to recognize as spelling errors, for instance, Noel
> > in French (which should spell NoÃ«l).
> >
> > I have made sure the exception file is in plain text, one word
> > misspelled per line and that it is saved under the name MSSP3FR.EXC in
> > the same directory as my custom.dic file.
> >
> > I have further made sure I have only one custom.dic file on my disk and
> > that this file, of course, does not contain the mispelled words. I have
> > also made sure the custom.dic file is correctly checked as the custom
> > dictionary.
> >
> > What next can I do? Any help will be greatly appreciated.
> >
> > Regards
> Sorry for answering my own post but I found a way around the problem by
> creating a subdirectory to \proof and moving the custom.dic and
> mssp3fr.exc there. For some reason, this works BUT I realize I have a
> secondary problem: since words must be written in lower case letters,
> the dictionary now does flag the error but proposes only "noÃ«l" in lower
> case, which in fact would replace a spelling error by another error.
>
> Is there anyway to solve this?
>
> Best regards.
>
> --
> John Doue
>

aalaan · External Since: Aug 31, 2006 Posts: 106

Well explained. I would just say that I would put both versions in an
exclusion file. It's better to be challenged at either occurrence, and then
'ignore', than to let a wrong one through. I have done this with 'abut' and
'exited' and 'excited' as well as 'dinning' which is a very rare word
meaning to make a din, whereas it is much lore likely you will mistype
'dining'! N'est pas?

"Thierry Fontenelle [MSFT]"
<ThierryFontenelleMSFT.DeleteThis@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3525C6A6-E573-49A2-90F0-29B1DD26B891@microsoft.com...
> Hi John,
>
> The problem is that "noël" is also a valid common noun in French. It can
> refer to a song sung around Christmas time, or to a gift (the Petit Robert
> gives this example, for instance: "donner aux enfants leurs petits
> noëls").
> This explains why "noël" in lower case is in the speller lexicon. So you
> are
> not replacing an error by another error, in fact. There is simply a
> coincidence between two words, one which, in a given sense, should always
> be
> capitalized, and another, common noun that is not capitalized. It's not
> different from the pair pierre (=stone)-Pierre (first name). You could
> have
> the same in English if you wrote "James bond" where "bond" would not be
> squiggled by the regular spell-checker because the word also exists in
> English as a regular noun.
>
> This being said, I agree with you that Noel without the accent is not a
> very
> frequent first name in French and it would probably be better to only
> include
> the upper-case with the diacritic. We'll definitely think about this for
> the
> next version.
>
> Thanks for your feedback,
>
> Thierry
>
> Thierry Fontenelle [MSFT]
> Microsoft Natural Language Group
>
>
>
>
> "John Doue" wrote:
>
>> John Doue wrote:
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > Although I have very carefully followed the very clear instructions
>> > from
>> > the MVP site http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/ExcludeWordFromDic.htm,
>> > I cannot get Word 03 to recognize as spelling errors, for instance,
>> > Noel
>> > in French (which should spell Noël).
>> >
>> > I have made sure the exception file is in plain text, one word
>> > misspelled per line and that it is saved under the name MSSP3FR.EXC in
>> > the same directory as my custom.dic file.
>> >
>> > I have further made sure I have only one custom.dic file on my disk and
>> > that this file, of course, does not contain the mispelled words. I have
>> > also made sure the custom.dic file is correctly checked as the custom
>> > dictionary.
>> >
>> > What next can I do? Any help will be greatly appreciated.
>> >
>> > Regards
>> Sorry for answering my own post but I found a way around the problem by
>> creating a subdirectory to \proof and moving the custom.dic and
>> mssp3fr.exc there. For some reason, this works BUT I realize I have a
>> secondary problem: since words must be written in lower case letters,
>> the dictionary now does flag the error but proposes only "noël" in lower
>> case, which in fact would replace a spelling error by another error.
>>
>> Is there anyway to solve this?
>>
>> Best regards.
>>
>> --
>> John Doue
>>

Thierry Fontenelle [MSFT] · External Since: Aug 26, 2006 Posts: 7

Thanks for the suggestion, Aalaan. It's always a trade-off, of course.
Deciding to include a word or not is never an easy task (if we were to remove
"noÃ«l" from the French lexicon, I'm pretty sure we'd also get messages from
users who would wonder why we don't recognize it in lower case "since all
standard dictionaries include it". Your mention of "exited", etc is
interesting. We can only hope that this problem will be less serious in the
future now that we are introducing a contextual speller in Office 2007. So if
you write something like "I'm exited about this", we now squiggle "exited"
and suggest "excited", even though "exited" is still in the lexicon of the
traditional spell-checker and is correct in other contexts.

See http://blogs.msdn.com/naturallanguage/archive/2006/06/19/637359.aspx or
http://blogs.msdn.com/correcteurorthographiqueoffice/archive/2006/06/0...17653.a for more information about this new feature...

Thierry

Thierry Fontenelle [MSFT]
Microsoft Natural Language Group

"aalaan" wrote:

> Well explained. I would just say that I would put both versions in an
> exclusion file. It's better to be challenged at either occurrence, and then
> 'ignore', than to let a wrong one through. I have done this with 'abut' and
> 'exited' and 'excited' as well as 'dinning' which is a very rare word
> meaning to make a din, whereas it is much lore likely you will mistype
> 'dining'! N'est pas?
>
> "Thierry Fontenelle [MSFT]"
> <ThierryFontenelleMSFT RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:3525C6A6-E573-49A2-90F0-29B1DD26B891@microsoft.com...
> > Hi John,
> >
> > The problem is that "noÃ«l" is also a valid common noun in French. It can
> > refer to a song sung around Christmas time, or to a gift (the Petit Robert
> > gives this example, for instance: "donner aux enfants leurs petits
> > noÃ«ls").
> > This explains why "noÃ«l" in lower case is in the speller lexicon. So you
> > are
> > not replacing an error by another error, in fact. There is simply a
> > coincidence between two words, one which, in a given sense, should always
> > be
> > capitalized, and another, common noun that is not capitalized. It's not
> > different from the pair pierre (=stone)-Pierre (first name). You could
> > have
> > the same in English if you wrote "James bond" where "bond" would not be
> > squiggled by the regular spell-checker because the word also exists in
> > English as a regular noun.
> >
> > This being said, I agree with you that Noel without the accent is not a
> > very
> > frequent first name in French and it would probably be better to only
> > include
> > the upper-case with the diacritic. We'll definitely think about this for
> > the
> > next version.
> >
> > Thanks for your feedback,
> >
> > Thierry
> >
> > Thierry Fontenelle [MSFT]
> > Microsoft Natural Language Group
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > "John Doue" wrote:
> >
> >> John Doue wrote:
> >> > Hi,
> >> >
> >> > Although I have very carefully followed the very clear instructions
> >> > from
> >> > the MVP site http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/ExcludeWordFromDic.htm,
> >> > I cannot get Word 03 to recognize as spelling errors, for instance,
> >> > Noel
> >> > in French (which should spell NoÃ«l).
> >> >
> >> > I have made sure the exception file is in plain text, one word
> >> > misspelled per line and that it is saved under the name MSSP3FR.EXC in
> >> > the same directory as my custom.dic file.
> >> >
> >> > I have further made sure I have only one custom.dic file on my disk and
> >> > that this file, of course, does not contain the mispelled words. I have
> >> > also made sure the custom.dic file is correctly checked as the custom
> >> > dictionary.
> >> >
> >> > What next can I do? Any help will be greatly appreciated.
> >> >
> >> > Regards
> >> Sorry for answering my own post but I found a way around the problem by
> >> creating a subdirectory to \proof and moving the custom.dic and
> >> mssp3fr.exc there. For some reason, this works BUT I realize I have a
> >> secondary problem: since words must be written in lower case letters,
> >> the dictionary now does flag the error but proposes only "noÃ«l" in lower
> >> case, which in fact would replace a spelling error by another error.
> >>
> >> Is there anyway to solve this?
> >>
> >> Best regards.
> >>
> >> --
> >> John Doue
> >>
>
>
>

aalaan · External Since: Aug 31, 2006 Posts: 106

Thanks for such a quick reply. I didn't realise you actually worked at
Microsoft. I wouldn't dare to suggest messing with your lexicon. I think
it's up to the user to create exclusion dictionaries as required, and they
were the entries I found necessary.

However, I definitely have issues with the spell and grammar checking in
other areas, which range from plain wrong to misleading, but as they are on
Word 2000 I wouldn't trouble you with them. Wonderful program by the way.

Friday arvo here in Australia so I'm 'excited' about 'exiting' to a glass
of cool beverage. No more editing today! Almost as Boozy as Paris was...
Thanks again.
"Thierry Fontenelle [MSFT]"
<ThierryFontenelleMSFT RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:8452780A-3B59-4027-BDEC-4B0D745C7594@microsoft.com...
> Thanks for the suggestion, Aalaan. It's always a trade-off, of course.
> Deciding to include a word or not is never an easy task (if we were to
> remove
> "noël" from the French lexicon, I'm pretty sure we'd also get messages
> from
> users who would wonder why we don't recognize it in lower case "since all
> standard dictionaries include it". Your mention of "exited", etc is
> interesting. We can only hope that this problem will be less serious in
> the
> future now that we are introducing a contextual speller in Office 2007. So
> if
> you write something like "I'm exited about this", we now squiggle "exited"
> and suggest "excited", even though "exited" is still in the lexicon of the
> traditional spell-checker and is correct in other contexts.
>
> See http://blogs.msdn.com/naturallanguage/archive/2006/06/19/637359.aspx
> or
> http://blogs.msdn.com/correcteurorthographiqueoffice/archive/2006/06/0...17653.a
> for more information about this new feature...
>
> Thierry
>
> Thierry Fontenelle [MSFT]
> Microsoft Natural Language Group
>
>
> "aalaan" wrote:
>
>> Well explained. I would just say that I would put both versions in an
>> exclusion file. It's better to be challenged at either occurrence, and
>> then
>> 'ignore', than to let a wrong one through. I have done this with 'abut'
>> and
>> 'exited' and 'excited' as well as 'dinning' which is a very rare word
>> meaning to make a din, whereas it is much lore likely you will mistype
>> 'dining'! N'est pas?
>>
>> "Thierry Fontenelle [MSFT]"
>> <ThierryFontenelleMSFT RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:3525C6A6-E573-49A2-90F0-29B1DD26B891@microsoft.com...
>> > Hi John,
>> >
>> > The problem is that "noël" is also a valid common noun in French. It
>> > can
>> > refer to a song sung around Christmas time, or to a gift (the Petit
>> > Robert
>> > gives this example, for instance: "donner aux enfants leurs petits
>> > noëls").
>> > This explains why "noël" in lower case is in the speller lexicon. So
>> > you
>> > are
>> > not replacing an error by another error, in fact. There is simply a
>> > coincidence between two words, one which, in a given sense, should
>> > always
>> > be
>> > capitalized, and another, common noun that is not capitalized. It's not
>> > different from the pair pierre (=stone)-Pierre (first name). You could
>> > have
>> > the same in English if you wrote "James bond" where "bond" would not be
>> > squiggled by the regular spell-checker because the word also exists in
>> > English as a regular noun.
>> >
>> > This being said, I agree with you that Noel without the accent is not a
>> > very
>> > frequent first name in French and it would probably be better to only
>> > include
>> > the upper-case with the diacritic. We'll definitely think about this
>> > for
>> > the
>> > next version.
>> >
>> > Thanks for your feedback,
>> >
>> > Thierry
>> >
>> > Thierry Fontenelle [MSFT]
>> > Microsoft Natural Language Group
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > "John Doue" wrote:
>> >
>> >> John Doue wrote:
>> >> > Hi,
>> >> >
>> >> > Although I have very carefully followed the very clear instructions
>> >> > from
>> >> > the MVP site
>> >> > http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/ExcludeWordFromDic.htm,
>> >> > I cannot get Word 03 to recognize as spelling errors, for instance,
>> >> > Noel
>> >> > in French (which should spell Noël).
>> >> >
>> >> > I have made sure the exception file is in plain text, one word
>> >> > misspelled per line and that it is saved under the name MSSP3FR.EXC
>> >> > in
>> >> > the same directory as my custom.dic file.
>> >> >
>> >> > I have further made sure I have only one custom.dic file on my disk
>> >> > and
>> >> > that this file, of course, does not contain the mispelled words. I
>> >> > have
>> >> > also made sure the custom.dic file is correctly checked as the
>> >> > custom
>> >> > dictionary.
>> >> >
>> >> > What next can I do? Any help will be greatly appreciated.
>> >> >
>> >> > Regards
>> >> Sorry for answering my own post but I found a way around the problem
>> >> by
>> >> creating a subdirectory to \proof and moving the custom.dic and
>> >> mssp3fr.exc there. For some reason, this works BUT I realize I have a
>> >> secondary problem: since words must be written in lower case letters,
>> >> the dictionary now does flag the error but proposes only "noël" in
>> >> lower
>> >> case, which in fact would replace a spelling error by another error.
>> >>
>> >> Is there anyway to solve this?
>> >>
>> >> Best regards.
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> John Doue
>> >>
>>
>>
>>

John Doue · External Since: Dec 20, 2004 Posts: 38

aalaan wrote:
> Thanks for such a quick reply. I didn't realise you actually worked at
> Microsoft. I wouldn't dare to suggest messing with your lexicon. I think
> it's up to the user to create exclusion dictionaries as required, and they
> were the entries I found necessary.
>
> However, I definitely have issues with the spell and grammar checking in
> other areas, which range from plain wrong to misleading, but as they are on
> Word 2000 I wouldn't trouble you with them. Wonderful program by the way.
>
> Friday arvo here in Australia so I'm 'excited' about 'exiting' to a glass
> of cool beverage. No more editing today! Almost as Boozy as Paris was...
> Thanks again.
> "Thierry Fontenelle [MSFT]"
> <ThierryFontenelleMSFT RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:8452780A-3B59-4027-BDEC-4B0D745C7594@microsoft.com...
>> Thanks for the suggestion, Aalaan. It's always a trade-off, of course.
>> Deciding to include a word or not is never an easy task (if we were to
>> remove
>> "noël" from the French lexicon, I'm pretty sure we'd also get messages
>> from
>> users who would wonder why we don't recognize it in lower case "since all
>> standard dictionaries include it". Your mention of "exited", etc is
>> interesting. We can only hope that this problem will be less serious in
>> the
>> future now that we are introducing a contextual speller in Office 2007. So
>> if
>> you write something like "I'm exited about this", we now squiggle "exited"
>> and suggest "excited", even though "exited" is still in the lexicon of the
>> traditional spell-checker and is correct in other contexts.
>>
>> See http://blogs.msdn.com/naturallanguage/archive/2006/06/19/637359.aspx
>> or
>> http://blogs.msdn.com/correcteurorthographiqueoffice/archive/2006/06/0...17653.a
>> for more information about this new feature...
>>
>> Thierry
>>
>> Thierry Fontenelle [MSFT]
>> Microsoft Natural Language Group
>>
>>
>> "aalaan" wrote:
>>
>>> Well explained. I would just say that I would put both versions in an
>>> exclusion file. It's better to be challenged at either occurrence, and
>>> then
>>> 'ignore', than to let a wrong one through. I have done this with 'abut'
>>> and
>>> 'exited' and 'excited' as well as 'dinning' which is a very rare word
>>> meaning to make a din, whereas it is much lore likely you will mistype
>>> 'dining'! N'est pas?
>>>
>>> "Thierry Fontenelle [MSFT]"
>>> <ThierryFontenelleMSFT RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>>> news:3525C6A6-E573-49A2-90F0-29B1DD26B891@microsoft.com...
>>>> Hi John,
>>>>
>>>> The problem is that "noël" is also a valid common noun in French. It
>>>> can
>>>> refer to a song sung around Christmas time, or to a gift (the Petit
>>>> Robert
>>>> gives this example, for instance: "donner aux enfants leurs petits
>>>> noëls").
>>>> This explains why "noël" in lower case is in the speller lexicon. So
>>>> you
>>>> are
>>>> not replacing an error by another error, in fact. There is simply a
>>>> coincidence between two words, one which, in a given sense, should
>>>> always
>>>> be
>>>> capitalized, and another, common noun that is not capitalized. It's not
>>>> different from the pair pierre (=stone)-Pierre (first name). You could
>>>> have
>>>> the same in English if you wrote "James bond" where "bond" would not be
>>>> squiggled by the regular spell-checker because the word also exists in
>>>> English as a regular noun.
>>>>
>>>> This being said, I agree with you that Noel without the accent is not a
>>>> very
>>>> frequent first name in French and it would probably be better to only
>>>> include
>>>> the upper-case with the diacritic. We'll definitely think about this
>>>> for
>>>> the
>>>> next version.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for your feedback,
>>>>
>>>> Thierry
>>>>
>>>> Thierry Fontenelle [MSFT]
>>>> Microsoft Natural Language Group
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> "John Doue" wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> John Doue wrote:
>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Although I have very carefully followed the very clear instructions
>>>>>> from
>>>>>> the MVP site
>>>>>> http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/ExcludeWordFromDic.htm,
>>>>>> I cannot get Word 03 to recognize as spelling errors, for instance,
>>>>>> Noel
>>>>>> in French (which should spell Noël).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have made sure the exception file is in plain text, one word
>>>>>> misspelled per line and that it is saved under the name MSSP3FR.EXC
>>>>>> in
>>>>>> the same directory as my custom.dic file.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have further made sure I have only one custom.dic file on my disk
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> that this file, of course, does not contain the mispelled words. I
>>>>>> have
>>>>>> also made sure the custom.dic file is correctly checked as the
>>>>>> custom
>>>>>> dictionary.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What next can I do? Any help will be greatly appreciated.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Regards
>>>>> Sorry for answering my own post but I found a way around the problem
>>>>> by
>>>>> creating a subdirectory to \proof and moving the custom.dic and
>>>>> mssp3fr.exc there. For some reason, this works BUT I realize I have a
>>>>> secondary problem: since words must be written in lower case letters,
>>>>> the dictionary now does flag the error but proposes only "noël" in
>>>>> lower
>>>>> case, which in fact would replace a spelling error by another error.
>>>>>
>>>>> Is there anyway to solve this?
>>>>>
>>>>> Best regards.
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> John Doue
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
Aalan and Thierry, thanks about these commments, I had not realized that
"noël" was acceptable in a certain meaning in French. My client did not
take it this way and might lack sense of humor. He must be using a
different speller than MS Word's since he detected the lack of "ë" in
Noël, a mistake which had survived several layers of checking. As far as
Aalan suggestion is concerned, AFAIK, it is not possible to include any
capital case spelling in the exclusion file. This is very clearly
spelled out (pun intended) in the exclusing instructions.

And yes, Thierry, it would be nice if MS would look into such cases but
however good the spell-checking will be, it will not detect a mistake I
caught at the very last minute in a document I was about to email to the
same client. Since I know Thierry's French is excellent (of course),
here it is (was):

"Ce trimestre, la croissance devrait être triée par ..." How could
possibly Word detect I intended to type "tirée" ... Fortunately, I
caught it in time ... Life is tough!

Regards

--
John Doue

aalaan · External Since: Aug 31, 2006 Posts: 106

Well John, it's just a fact of life. Here we subject every book to at least
five stages of careful checking after an e-edit. But almost invariably there
are still errors only picked up at the fifth stage, and worse -- when the
book is finally on the bookshop shelves, a quick dive in usually reveals one
more error that's been entirely missed! And the trouble is, the author has
done the same thing and found the same error. Sigh. But never mind, at least
we caught the other 764.

"John Doue" <notwobe.TakeThisOut@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:e6avqUmCHHA.4256@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

> Aalan and Thierry, thanks about these commments, I had not realized that
> "noël" was acceptable in a certain meaning in French. My client did not
> take it this way and might lack sense of humor. He must be using a
> different speller than MS Word's since he detected the lack of "ë" in
> Noël, a mistake which had survived several layers of checking. As far as
> Aalan suggestion is concerned, AFAIK, it is not possible to include any
> capital case spelling in the exclusion file. This is very clearly spelled
> out (pun intended) in the exclusing instructions.
>
> And yes, Thierry, it would be nice if MS would look into such cases but
> however good the spell-checking will be, it will not detect a mistake I
> caught at the very last minute in a document I was about to email to the
> same client. Since I know Thierry's French is excellent (of course), here
> it is (was):
>
> "Ce trimestre, la croissance devrait être triée par ..." How could
> possibly Word detect I intended to type "tirée" ... Fortunately, I caught
> it in time ... Life is tough!
>
> Regards
>
> --
> John Doue