Re: [Aspell-user] Help adding word to dictionary?

[Ciarán Ó Duibhín]

Carlo wrote, in reply to David O'Brien:

> AFAIK changing the "special" line
[for English, to include     special - -*-  ]
> and recompiling is not a solution,
> since (valid) words composed of two valid words joined by a hyphen
> should then be added (manually) to the dictionary.

True at present, unfortunately.  But in principle, an option could be 
programmed, to make aspell accept "drop-down" when the dictionary contains 
"drop" and "down".  The only manual additions to the dictionary would then 
be words like "hotch-potch", because "hotch" and "potch" are not in the 
dictionary.

I think such an option would be generally useful, at least for English, and 
incidentally would make aspell behave more like the MS-Word spell-checker.

I made such a modification a few years ago, and it worked to my own 
satisfaction, but the code changes would require to be examined by someone 
fully conversant with the workings of aspell before it could be considered 
safe.

Ciarán Ó Duibhín.