MS Dictionary and Occam's Razor

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2003-04-01 05:51am

You guys probably already know this, but I was amused to find out while writing an english paper that Microsoft Word's built-in dictionary does not recognize "Occam" as a properly spelled word. As one of its suggestion words it gives "scam".

That dictionary is pretty crazy. I tested some other names to see if it had them. Names it had:

Wozniak
Rousseau
Locke
Kant
Fuhrman
Ito
Cochran
Genghis
Batman
Kurosawa
Toshiro
Scooby

Names it didn't have:

Occam
Kierkegaard
Affleck
Mifune
Flinstone
Jetson

Ahhh...that's crazy. Now, back to writing this damned essay.

Post by **Gandalf** » 2003-04-01 05:56am

Whoa, thats some weird shit.

Kuroneko · Post by **Kuroneko** » 2003-04-01 06:11am

See if it accepts "Ockham" instead. In my personal experience that spelling is slightly more common when his name is referenced, but "Occam" is used more often with the "Razor" principle. "Ockham" is English spelling, while "Occam" is Latin. The two are completely interchangable, and there does not seem to be a consensus for usage.

Post by **Gandalf** » 2003-04-01 06:16am

Kuroneko wrote:See if it accepts "Ockham" instead. In my personal experience that spelling is slightly more common when his name is referenced, but "Occam" is used more often with the "Razor" principle. "Ockham" is English spelling, while "Occam" is Latin. The two are completely interchangable, and there does not seem to be a consensus for usage.

I've also seen Ockam.

Kuroneko · Post by **Kuroneko** » 2003-04-01 06:19am

Gandalf wrote:I've also seen Ockam.

Possible, but I've never seen it spelled that way in any published work. Most likely an error.

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2003-04-01 06:20am

Nope, doesn't take "Ockham" or "Ockam". But I didn't test for them, of course, because I didn't read your response, because I wasn't surfing the net, because I was writing my essay. Or so I'll keep telling myself.

Kuroneko · Post by **Kuroneko** » 2003-04-01 06:24am

Doesn't have it either? Hmm, MS Word spell/grammar check is even more of a joke than I previously thought.

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2003-04-01 10:55am

Good old WordPerfect 6.1 has "Occam" in its spellcheck dictionary, but not the other variations of if. 10 years and I still haven't found a better program for wordprocessing....

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-04-01 12:04pm

Microsoft doesn't make their own dictionary, they license it off another company.

Kuroneko · Post by **Kuroneko** » 2003-04-01 12:22pm

Regardless, it is inadequate. One would think they could afford to license a better one, or have the resources to make a better one.