Spelling checker won't forget a word

[NisusUser]

From the NWP manual:

Remove words from the dictionary
There are three ways you can remove a word from the dictionary so that the spelling checker will resume flagging it in any document or application.
1. Type the word directly into the Replace With box of the spelling checker and click Forget.
2. Select it in the document and choose the menu command Edit > Spelling > Forget Spelling.
3. Select the word, press Ctrl and choose Forget Spelling from the contextual menu that appears.

I tried this on a word that is erroneously in the spelling dictionary, and if I type that word into my text, it still does not get marked as misspelled. Any ideas why?

I'm using NWP 2.0.7 on OS 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard).

I notice that my system thinks I have two dictionaries for this language, since in Apple Mail two of them show up, one with "(Library)" after it. Might that be the problem? Maybe one dictionary (that NWP edits) is being corrected, but the other one is also being accessed during spell checking?

Thanks.

[Groucho]

Spelling dictionaries can be in two places: Your-HD/Library/Spelling or ~/Library/Spelling, where ~ is your home folder. If you have duplicates you can merge them into one. Just open them as text (in Nwp go to File>Open…, then check Ignore Rich Text Commands) and copy/paste the content. You'd better do this on a backup copy.

Best,
Henry.

[greenmorpher]

"Forget Spelling"? Huh? I haven’t got "Forget Spelling" in NWP on OS x.6.8 -- AND I WANT IT!!!

Cheers, geoff

[NisusUser]

"Forget Spelling"? Huh? I haven’t got "Forget Spelling" in NWP on OS x.6.8 -- AND I WANT IT!!!

All three of those options are available to me in NWP to forget a word. Have you tried those three methods? You can access the first option via Shift-Cmd-; (Shift - Command - Semicolon). The rest are menu commands and self-explanatory. They should be available to you.

[NisusUser]

Spelling dictionaries can be in two places: Your-HD/Library/Spelling or ~/Library/Spelling, where ~ is your home folder. If you have duplicates you can merge them into one. Just open them as text (in Nwp go to File>Open…, then check Ignore Rich Text Commands) and copy/paste the content. You'd better do this on a backup copy.

Interesting. The only place I can find anything in a "Spelling" folder in in my ~/Library/Spelling (home) folder. However, on the Spelling folder under my hard drive/Library is totally blank. So I wonder why Mail thinks (and apparently NWP also) that I have two dictionaries? I can tell that today when I told NWP to learn words, that they were added to the dictionary file in my home folder, since it's been changed today.

[Groucho]

"Forget Spelling"? Huh? I haven’t got "Forget Spelling" in NWP on OS x.6.8 -- AND I WANT IT!!!

Cheers, geoff

You have it. Only you don’t see it. Here it is:

Screenshot 2014-01-10 at 8.29.37 PM.jpg (11.34 KiB) Viewed 17683 times

Of course, you have to first save a word in a customized dictionary by right-clicking on it and selecting Learn Spelling.

By the way, Dictionary Editor is an easy-to-use free application that allows you to edit a custom dictionary without having to locate it and open it in a text editor.

Best, Henry

[martin]

I'm not sure about your duplicate dictionary situation, or what impact that might have on learning/forgetting words, but I can say that the process is mostly handled by OSX and the spelling dictionary. When you ask NWP to forget a word, it just turns around and asks OSX to handle that request. But what I do observe is that OSX cannot forget a word that was not previously learned, ie: you cannot forget a word that is part of the dictionary's initial word list. So for example in an English dictionary you could not forget the word "blue" because it's part of the built-in list. I don't know if that's a factor here, but I thought I'd mention it.

[greenmorpher]

OK, got it at last. Why couldn't I see it before? But what I see is not the same as the screen shot.

I have been dickering around with a non-word "liddl". it just showed with the spelling notification underline here in Firefox, but in NWP and TextEditor, it is not marked. NWP and TextEditor are both marketed here but NOT in NWP , although TextEditer is (and is here too).

But I have checked the dictionaries as suggested here. Nope, liddl does not appear in them. Neither do other misspellings I am sure I have accidentally had the dictionary learn.

I went to my-home folder/Library/Spelling and found THREE dictionaries -- en, en-AU, Local Dictionary. en-AU contained just four words!

Further, these are not the main dictionaries and there are some duplicates.

I presume the en-AU was a hangover from when I used to use Australian spelling; I switched to US spelling some time ago. I just copied the four words out of en-AU and deleted it. Everything seems to work fine … But why the TWO dictionaries, en and Local Dictionary?

In addition, many of the words I have saved are proper nouns, entered and recorded in the dictionaries with capital initial letters. NWP is taking no notice of those caps. It is allowing these proper nouns, place names and so on, to go through without capital initials. Other programs are respecting the caps.

Huh?

I don’t use QuickFix, by the way -- while it is fine within NWP it doesn't work in other programs so I use Typinator for system-wide consistency.

Cheers, geoff

[NisusUser]

I'm not sure about your duplicate dictionary situation, or what impact that might have on learning/forgetting words, but I can say that the process is mostly handled by OSX and the spelling dictionary. When you ask NWP to forget a word, it just turns around and asks OSX to handle that request. But what I do observe is that OSX cannot forget a word that was not previously learned, ie: you cannot forget a word that is part of the dictionary's initial word list. So for example in an English dictionary you could not forget the word "blue" because it's part of the built-in list. I don't know if that's a factor here, but I thought I'd mention it.

Thanks, Martin. I have a hunch that's the problem. There is a word that is widely spelled a certain way that should not be. It's probably in the "main" dictionary. Thus I never told OSX to learn it. Thus it can't be "unlearned." Which makes me wonder if there's a way to open the "main" dictionary with a text editor like Text Wrangler and find the word and delete it there? It's definitely considered a misspelling, but probably wasn't when the dictionary was compiled.

[Groucho]

Spelling dictionaries are text-only files. So you can open and save it using TextWrangler or any other text editor. Maybe TW won't open it on double-click, though. Open TextWrangler first and then drag the dictionary on its icon on the dock.

Henry.

[greenmorpher]

Spelling dictionaries are text-only files. So you can open and save it using TextWrangler or any other text editor. Maybe TW won't open it on double-click, though. Open TextWrangler first and then drag the dictionary on its icon on the dock.

Henry.

But where is the central OS X dictionary? Is it the thing called Dictionary in the OS X folder in the Dictionary app? is it something else in that app? Nope. Where are the words?

Cheers, geoff

[NisusUser]

But where is the central OS X dictionary? Is it the thing called Dictionary in the OS X folder in the Dictionary app? is it something else in that app? Nope. Where are the words?

This is precisely what I wanted to know. I know where the user-made dictionary is based on this thread, but I don't know where the system one is that obviously has a word in it that should not be there.

[phspaelti]

I am pretty sure that the main dictionary is in some non-text format. So you won't find a nice list of words where you can just delete some.
Obviously, if somebody knows more about this, I would be happy to be corrected.

[Groucho]

Oh, I see now. I misunderstood your request. But I think Philip is right. OSX main spelling dictionary must be buried somewhere and not in a human-readable form. I searched for "spell" in OSX.6.8 and only found a few files in appkit that are too small to be dictionaries. I searched for spell with "system files are included" as search attribute. Anyway, unless you find a utility that can do the trick and exclude single words from the spelling dictionary, I think there is no way to change it.

Henry

[NisusUser]

Here's some info on where the dictionary might be: http://apple.stackexchange.com/question ... ac-os-10-8

But I'm not sure it helps know what to do to edit it.