NAME
spell, spellin, spellout - find spelling errors

SYNOPSIS
spell [ -v ] [ -b ] [ -x ] [ -d hlist ] [ -s hstop ]
[ -h spellhist ] [ file ] ...

spellin [ list ]

spellout [ -d ] list

DESCRIPTION
Spell collects words from the named documents, and looks them up in
a spelling list. Words that neither occur among nor are derivable
(by applying certain inflections, prefixes or suffixes) from words
in the spelling list are printed on the standard output. If no
files are named, words are collected from the standard input.

Spell ignores most troff(1), tbl(1) and eqn(1) constructions.

Under the -v option, all words not literally in the spelling list
are printed, and plausible derivations from spelling list words are
indicated.

Under the -b option, British spelling is checked. Besides
preferring centre, colour, speciality, travelled, etc., this option
insists upon -ise in words like standardise, Fowler and the OED to
the contrary notwithstanding.

Under the -x option, every plausible stem is printed with ‘=’ for
each word.

The spelling list is based on many sources. While it is more
haphazard than an ordinary dictionary, it is also more effective
with proper names and popular technical words. Coverage of the
specialized vocabularies of biology, medicine and chemistry is
light.

The auxiliary files used for the spelling list, stop list, and
history file may be specified by arguments following the -d, -s,
and -h options. The default files are indicated below. Copies of
all output may be accumulated in the history file. The stop list
filters out misspellings (e.g. thier=thy-y+ier) that would
otherwise pass.

Two routines help maintain the hash lists used by spell. Both
expect a set of words, one per line, from the standard input.
Spellin combines the words from the standard input and the
preexisting list file and places a new list on the standard output.
If no list file is specified, the new list is created from scratch.
Spellout looks up each word from the standard input and prints on
the standard output those that are missing from (or present on,
with option -d) the hashed list file. For example, to verify that
hookey is not on the default spelling list, add it to your own
private list, and then use it with spell,

echo hookey | spellout /usr/dict/hlista
echo hookey | spellin /usr/dict/hlista > myhlist
spell -d myhlist huckfinn

FILES
/usr/dict/hlist[ab] hashed spelling lists, American & British,
default for -d
/usr/dict/hstop hashed stop list, default for -s
/dev/null history file, default for -h
/tmp/spell.$$* temporary files
/usr/lib/spell

SEE ALSO
deroff(1), sort(1), tee(1), sed(1)

BUGS
The spelling list’s coverage is uneven; new installations will
probably wish to monitor the output for several months to gather
local additions.
British spelling was done by an American.