SPELL(1)

🦋 the SPELL(1) glow-up: spell, sprog, and the quest for no typos 🦋

okay so bestie, this is the SPELL(1) page from the General Commands Manual, and it is literally about finding spelling errors. no cap. 💖

💖 NAME 💖

spell, sprog — find spelling errors. (yes, both of them, we love a duo — slay)

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

here's the shape of it, character for character:

spell [ options ] ...  [ file ] ...

sprog [ options ] [ -f file ]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so 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. it's highkey giving "spellcheck but make it Unix," and I'm obsessed. 🫶

it also ignores constructs of troff(1) and its standard preprocessors. (iykyk, formatting goblins stay out of the group chat.) it understands these options:

• -b — check British spelling. 🇬🇧
• -v — print all words not literally in the spelling list, with derivations.
• -x — print, marked with every stem as it is looked up in the spelling list, along with its affix classes.

policy time, and it is strict: 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). periodt. 💅 fr fr.

📁 FILES 📁

file vibe check:

• /lib/amspell — American spelling list. 🦅
• /lib/brspell — British spelling list. 🫖
• /bin/sprog — the actual spelling checker. it expects one word per line on standard input, and takes the same arguments as spell. 👑

🌱 SOURCE 🌱

• /bin/spell — the script. iconic.
• /src/cmd/spell — source for sprog.

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

• deroff(1) (the whole squad, honestly)

🫠 BUGS 🫠

• ngl, the heuristics of deroff(1) used to excise formatting information are imperfect. yeah, imperfect, not me being dramatic. 😭
• the spelling list's coverage is uneven; in particular biology, medicine, and chemistry, and perforce proper names, not to mention languages other than English, are covered very lightly. so don't come for it about your niche biochem fave, okay? 🙈

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okay that's the whole SPELL(1) page, bestie — the footer is literally just SPELL(1), no version/date lore, and I respect the minimalist queen energy. 💅✨