Automated spell analysis

• US 20040205672A1
• Filed: 12/29/2000
• Published: 10/14/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 12/29/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Day, Paul Reuben, Cragun, Brian John, Bates, Cary Lee, Santosuosso, John Matthew
• Granted Patent: US 7,254,773 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/533
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/232 Orthographic correction, e.g. spell checking or vowelisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/242 Dictionaries

Abstract

An apparatus, program product and method utilize automated analysis techniques to assist in the determination of acceptable usages of linguistic terms (e.g., words, phrases, acronyms, etc.). In particular, an acceptable usage of a linguistic term may be determined by scanning a plurality of documents for variants (e.g., based on differing spellings, punctuation, capitalization, meaning or definition, etc.) of the term, and tracking relative occurrences of a plurality of such variants found in the plurality of documents during scanning. By tracking occurrences of linguistic term variants, users may be able to use such statistical information to select which of the available variants represents an acceptable usage, or even a most acceptable usage, of a term. Scanned documents may be retrieved from the Internet, and scanning may occur while a user is browsing the Internet.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of analyzing linguistic terms, the method comprising:

(a) scanning a plurality of documents for variants of a linguistic term; and

(b) tracking relative occurrences of a plurality of variants of the linguistic term found in the plurality of documents during scanning to determine an acceptable usage of the linguistic term.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising retrieving the plurality of documents from a network, wherein scanning the plurality of documents includes scanning each document subsequent to retrieval of the document from the network.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein retrieving the plurality of documents from the network comprises retrieving the plurality of documents from at least one Internet web site in response to a user browsing the at least one Internet web site, and wherein scanning the plurality of documents includes scanning each document upon retrieval of that document from the at least one Internet web site.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising determining whether a retrieved document has already been scanned before scanning the retrieved document.

5. The method of claim 2, further comprising determining whether to scan a retrieved document based upon a source parameter associated with the linguistic term.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising browsing a second plurality of documents retrieved from at least one Internet web site in response to user input, wherein scanning the first plurality of documents is performed concurrently with browsing the second plurality of documents.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein scanning the first plurality of documents is performed in a background thread while documents from the second plurality of documents are being browsed.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein scanning the first plurality of documents includes scanning documents stored in a local history cache.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the linguistic term comprises a single word.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the linguistic term comprises a phrase.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the linguistic term comprises an acronym.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of variants differ from one another based upon at least one of punctuation, spelling, capitalization, hyphenation, and definition.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein scanning the plurality of documents includes scanning a document for an enumerated variant of the linguistic term.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein scanning the plurality of documents includes scanning a document for an unenumerated variant of the linguistic term.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein scanning the document for the unenumerated variant of the linguistic term includes scanning the document using phonetic comparison.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein tracking relative occurrences of the plurality of variants includes weighting occurrences based upon locations of such occurrences within the plurality of documents.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein tracking relative occurrences of the plurality of variants includes weighting occurrences based upon document types of the documents within which such occurrences are found.

18. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing a variant of the linguistic term in an electronic dictionary.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising spell checking a document using the electronic dictionary subsequent to storing the variant in the electronic dictionary.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein tracking relative occurrences of the plurality of variants includes storing context information associated with each occurrence of a variant of the linguistic term.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein scanning the plurality of documents includes scanning a document for a spell definition tag that identifies a variant of the linguistic term.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein scanning the plurality of documents and tracking relative occurrences are performed responsive to detecting a variant of the linguistic term during spell checking of a document.

23. A method of analyzing linguistic terms, the method comprising:

(a) browsing a plurality of web sites on the Internet in response to user input; and

(b) concurrently with browsing the plurality of web sites, tracking relative occurrences of a plurality of variants of a linguistic term found in the plurality of web sites to determine an acceptable usage of the linguistic term.

24. An apparatus, comprising:

(a) a memory; and

(b) a program resident in the memory and configured to determine an acceptable usage of a linguistic term by scanning a plurality of documents for variants of the linguistic term and tracking relative occurrences of a plurality of variants of the linguistic term found in the plurality of documents during scanning .

25. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein the program is further configured to retrieve the plurality of documents from at least one Internet web site in response to a user browsing the at least one Internet web site and scan the plurality of documents by scanning each document upon retrieval of that document from the at least one Internet web site.

26. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the program is further configured to determine whether a retrieved document has already been scanned before scanning the retrieved document.

27. The apparatus of claim 25, wherein the program is further configured to determine whether to scan a retrieved document based upon a source parameter associated with the linguistic term.

28. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein the program is further configured to browse a second plurality of documents retrieved from at least one Internet web site in response to user input, and scan the first plurality of documents concurrently with browsing the second plurality of documents.

29. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein the linguistic term is selected from the group consisting of a single word, a phrase, and an acronym.

30. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein the plurality of variants differ from one another based upon at least one of punctuation, spelling, capitalization, hyphenation, and definition.

31. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein the program is configured to scan the plurality of documents by scanning a document for an enumerated variant of the linguistic term.

32. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein the program is configured to scan the plurality of documents by scanning a document for an unenumerated variant of the linguistic term.

33. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein the program is configured to track relative occurrences of the plurality of variants by weighting occurrences based upon at least one of locations of such occurrences within the plurality of documents, and document types of the documents within which such occurrences are found.

34. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the program is further configured to store a variant of the linguistic term in an electronic dictionary, the apparatus further comprising a spell checker configured to spell check a document using the electronic dictionary subsequent to the variant being stored in the electronic dictionary.

35. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the program is further configured to store context information associated with each occurrence of a variant of the linguistic term.

36. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein the program is configured to scan a document for a spell definition tag that identifies a variant of the linguistic term.

37. A program product, comprising:

(a) a program configured to determine an acceptable usage of a linguistic term by scanning a plurality of documents for variants of the linguistic term and tracking relative occurrences of a plurality of variants of the linguistic term found in the plurality of documents during scanning; and

(b) a computer-readable signal bearing medium bearing the program.

38. The program product of claim 37, wherein the computer-readable signal bearing medium includes at least one of a transmission medium and a recordable medium.

39. A program product, comprising:

(a) a document, the document including a tag that identifies an acceptable variant of a linguistic term and a definition of the linguistic term; and

(b) a computer-readable signal bearing medium bearing the document.

40. A method of spell checking a document, the method comprising:

(a) comparing terms in a first document against an electronic dictionary; and

(b) in response to determining during the comparison that a term from the document is not in the electronic dictionary, automatically scanning a plurality of documents from the Internet to identify at least one acceptable usage of the term.

41. The method of claim 40, further comprising:

(a) tracking relative occurrences of a plurality of variants of the term found in the plurality of documents; and

(b) displaying results of such tracking to a user.

42. A method of managing an electronic dictionary, the method comprising:

(a) detecting a spell definition tag within a document retrieved from the Internet that identifies an acceptable variant of a linguistic term; and

(b) in response to detecting the spell definition tag, automatically adding the acceptable variant of the linguistic term to an electronic dictionary.

43. The method of claim 42, wherein detecting the spell definition tag is performed during user browsing of the Internet.