Surnames & Spell Check

Hi all,

I've got a bit of a long winded post but bear with me. I recently applied
for a new job within my company, and during my interview it was pointed out
that I spelt 'Bachelor' wrong on my resume... I spelt it as Batchelor
instead. This annoyed me, as spell check didn't catch it. While the onus is
still on me to catch it, I'm trying to figure out why spell check missed it.

If I don't capitalize the word 'batchelor', spell check does catch it and
suggest the proper spelling. However, if I spell it with a capital B
(Batchelor), spell check doesn't recognize it as an error. I've checked my
custom dictionary, and didn't find anything in there. The most frustrating
this is the manager interviewing for the job found that his spell check
caught the error mine missed!!!

My only theory is that certain versions the Microsoft Office dictionary
contain a set amount of surnames, and recognizes Batchelor as one of them.
I've searched and found that the name 'Batchelor' is the 3408th most popular
name in the US according to the 1991 Census. I've tried names above and
below, and found that 75% of these are recognized as legitimately spelled.

Is there anyone out there that can shed some light on the subject and help
vindicate me?

Thanks,
Scott

Hi Scott,

You did not mention the version of Office you are using. On my Office 2007
version, both “batchelor� and “Batchelor� are flagged by the speller. It is
true that the lexicon of the spell-checker includes a fair amount of first
and last names and their inclusion is based upon their frequency of
occurrence in our reference corpora. In addition to their frequency, we also
try to figure out whether their inclusion could “mask� a mistake made by the
user. I would guess that this is precisely what happened here: the word
“Batchelor� was most certainly in older versions of the dictionary because it
was a legitimate proper name, as you noted. It was subsequently removed
because it was found out that, in most cases, the user actually meant
“Bachelor� and flagging “Batchelor� is more useful to the majority of the
users. The discrepancy between the two versions of Office is in fact an
improvement in the latest versions, which no longer include this proper name.
Of course, users who do want to use the spelling “Batchelor� (because it’s
their real name or they write to someone who has that name) can always add it
to their custom dictionary. A trade-off is necessary here.

I hope it helps.

Best wishes,

Thierry

Thierry Fontenelle [MSFT]
Microsoft Natural Language Group


"Scott" wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I've got a bit of a long winded post but bear with me. I recently applied
> for a new job within my company, and during my interview it was pointed out
> that I spelt 'Bachelor' wrong on my resume... I spelt it as Batchelor
> instead. This annoyed me, as spell check didn't catch it. While the onus is
> still on me to catch it, I'm trying to figure out why spell check missed it.
>
> If I don't capitalize the word 'batchelor', spell check does catch it and
> suggest the proper spelling. However, if I spell it with a capital B
> (Batchelor), spell check doesn't recognize it as an error. I've checked my
> custom dictionary, and didn't find anything in there. The most frustrating
> this is the manager interviewing for the job found that his spell check
> caught the error mine missed!!!
>
> My only theory is that certain versions the Microsoft Office dictionary
> contain a set amount of surnames, and recognizes Batchelor as one of them.
> I've searched and found that the name 'Batchelor' is the 3408th most popular
> name in the US according to the 1991 Census. I've tried names above and
> below, and found that 75% of these are recognized as legitimately spelled.
>
> Is there anyone out there that can shed some light on the subject and help
> vindicate me?
>
> Thanks,
> Scott