1 Variant Conversion Info (VARCON)
7 Copyright 2000-2004 by Kevin Atkinson (kevina@gnu.org)
9 This package contains tables to convert between American, British, and
10 Canadian spellings and vocabulary as well as well as a table listing the
11 equivalent forms of other variants.
13 The latest version can be found at http://wordlist.sourceforge.net/.
15 The abbc.tab contains mappings between American, British with "ise"
16 spelling, British with "ize" spelling, and Canadian spellings. The
17 fields are separated by a tab character and have the Unix EOL
18 character. The first four columns are the spellings respectively.
19 The last column is used to mark words where the American or British
20 spelling is also used in the British or American spelling but only
21 when the word has a certain meaning. American words that are also
22 used in British / Canadian spellings are marked with a "A" while
23 British words that are also used in American / Canadian spellings are
26 The file voc.tab is like abbc.tab except that it converts between
27 vocabulary instead of spelling. If more than one word if often uses to
28 describe the same thing the words are separated with commas. The last
29 column contains additional notes on when the word is used. Unlike
30 abbc.tab it is generally not suitable for automatic conversion.
32 The file variant-also.tab contains additional mappings between various
33 spellings of a word which are not necessarily region dependent. Only
34 mappings that are not listed in abbc.tab are included in this mapping.
35 No attempt is made to distinguish the primary form of a word. The
36 file variant-infl.tab is like variant-also.tab except that it is
37 created automatically from the AGID inflection database. The file
38 variant-wroot.tab is like variant-infl.tab except that it also
39 included the root form of the word.
41 Both the translation array and variant table includes a lot of strange
42 affixations of words which I have no intention of removing as some
43 people might find them useful.
45 The "make-variant" Perl script will combine abbc.tab, variant-also.tab,
46 and variant-infl.tab into one huge mapping and will output the result
47 to "variant.tab". If the "no-infl" option is given than
48 variant-infl.tab will not be included.
50 The "split" script will create 5 words lists from abbc.tab:
51 american.lst, british.lst, british_z.lst, canadian.lst, and
52 common.lst. The common.lst file contains words that were marked in
53 the last column as explained above and the other four contain all the
54 possible words that might be used by that particular country, included
55 some of the words marked in the last column.
57 The "translate" Perl script will translate a text file from one
58 spelling to another. Its usage is:
60 translate <options> [<translation array>] <from> <to>
62 -?,-h,--help this screen
63 -m,--mark mark words where the translation is questionable
64 -i,--include include words where the translation is questionable
65 <translation array> is the file name of the translation array,
66 defaults to "abbc.tab".
67 <from> and <to> are one of: american, british, british_z, or canadian.
68 british-ise and british-ize can also be used.
70 Text is read in from standard input and is outputted to standard out.
71 Words are marked with a '?' before and after the questionable word
72 when the option is enabled.
74 If you discover any errors in these mappings, besides the strange
75 affixations, or have suggestions for additions be sure and let me know
80 These mappings were compiled from numerous sources.
82 The abc.tab was originally created from the American and British word
83 lists found in the Ispell distribution and the Canadian word list
84 created by Garst R. Reese <reese@isn.net>:
86 What I have discovered is that Canadian is a modification of British.
87 Canadians use ize ization, izing izable like Americans, and gram instead
88 of gramme. The one exception I found was practise. It does not go to
89 practize. Otherwise they use British spelling. So, what I am currently
90 checking books with is a an edited version of British, where I have
91 changed all occurrences of ise to ize, isab to izab, isation to ization,
92 ising to izing, and gramme to gram except I allow programme, which is
93 sometimes proper unless you are talking about a computer program. I did
94 bunches of greps to be sure these substitutions would work as expected.
96 Many other words have been added to abc.tab which were not in the
97 original Ispell word lists.
99 Many different web sources were consuled when crating the tables. They
102 The American-British British-American Dictionary
103 http://www.peak.org/~jeremy/dictionary/dictionary.html
104 American and British Spelling Differences
105 http://www.peak.org/~jeremy/dictionary/spellcat.html
106 Dave (VE7CNV)'s Truly Canadian Dictionary of Canadian Spelling
107 http://www.luther.bc.ca/~dave7cnv/cdnspelling/cdnspelling.html
108 Canadian Spelling Convention
109 http://imej.wfu.edu/articles/1999/1/02/demo/tutorial/canas.html
110 Cornerstone's Canadian English Page
111 http://www.web.net/cornerstone/cdneng.htm
112 Inter-Play Translation: British/Canadian/American Spelling
113 http://www.inter-play.com/translation/spel-ukus.htm
114 Inter-Play Translation: British/Canadian/American Vocabulary
115 http://www.inter-play.com/translation/voc-ukus.htm
117 As well as several online dicionaries:
119 Marriam-Webster: http://www.m-w.com/
120 American Heritage: http://www.bartleby.com/61/
121 Cambridge (ESL): http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
125 From Revision 4 to Revision 4.1 (August 10, 2004)
127 - Fixed various errors ib abbc.tab
129 - Removed clause 4 from the Ispell copyright with permission of Geoff
132 From Revision 3 to Revision 4 (August 7, 2004)
134 - Added a column to "abc.tab" for the British "ize" spelling and
135 renamed the file to abbc.tab.
136 - Added verb forms of prize/prise to abbc.tab, removed from
139 From Revision 2 to Revision 3 (January 2, 2003)
141 - Added an option for not including variant-infl.tab for the
142 make-variant perl script
143 - Added the file variant-wroot.tab
144 - Added a few entries given to me by Francis Bond and Edward Betts
146 From Revision 1 to Revision 2 (January 27, 2001)
148 - Removed all "B" markers because I could not find any evidence for
150 - Corrected a few Canadian entries, especially those with the "B"
152 - Added some more entries by trying fixed changes (such as ize to
153 ise) to words in SCOWL and hand-checking over the ones with semi-common
155 - Added variant-infl.tab
159 Copyright 2000-2004 by Kevin Atkinson
161 Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute and sell this array, the
162 associated software, and its documentation for any purpose is hereby
163 granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appears
164 in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission
165 notice appear in supporting documentation. Kevin Atkinson makes no
166 representations about the suitability of this array for any
167 purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.
169 Since the original words lists come from the Ispell distribution:
171 Copyright 1993, Geoff Kuenning, Granada Hills, CA
174 Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
175 modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
178 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
179 notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
180 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
181 notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
182 documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
183 3. All modifications to the source code must be clearly marked as
184 such. Binary redistributions based on modified source code
185 must be clearly marked as modified versions in the documentation
186 and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
187 (clause 4 removed with permission from Geoff Kuenning)
188 5. The name of Geoff Kuenning may not be used to endorse or promote
189 products derived from this software without specific prior
192 THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY GEOFF KUENNING AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
193 ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
194 IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
195 ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL GEOFF KUENNING OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
196 FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
197 DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
198 OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
199 HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
200 LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
201 OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF