Closed Bug 1899694 Opened 1 year ago Closed 1 year ago

Track new words and corrections to en-US dictionary

Categories

(Core :: Spelling Checker: en-US Dictionary, enhancement)

Product:
Core
Component:
Spelling Checker: en-US Dictionary
Type:
enhancement

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED FIXED
Milestone:
136 Branch
Tracking Flags:
Tracking Status
firefox136 --- fixed

People

(Reporter: flod, Assigned: flod)

References

Details

Attachments

(1 file)

Bug 1899694 - Update en-US dictionary with new words, r=bolsson
48 bytes, text/x-phabricator-request
Details | Review

Using this bug to track and discuss requests for new words in the Mozilla en-US dictionary.

  • Try to provide information on the terms you want to add, in particular references to external sources that confirm the usage of the term (e.g. Merriam-Webster or Oxford online dictionaries).
  • Include all possible forms, e.g. plural and genitive for nouns, different tenses for verbs.

A list of terms extracted from Wiktionary, ispell is also available in bug 1811451, and can be used as a reference for new words. The goal is to add words that are commonly used, not all the words, as that might have a negative impact on performances (and will impact the installer size).

Firefox has a big community on Reddit, but these words aren't in the dictionary: Reddit Redditor redditor.

Reddit makes sense, since we have other large websites (Google, Yahoo, etc.). On the other hand, I'm not convinced that redditor should be added, and that it belongs more to the personal dictionary.

Please check the names of other popular sites too, like: DuckDuckGo Spotify Yandex.

I would recommend caution when adding the names of commercial organizations. Many will turn out to be relatively short-lived (note that in the grand scheme of things, 20 years qualifies as "short-lived"). History is riddled with defunct companies that had odd names. There are some obvious exceptions, such as Google, which would continue to be discussed for many years even if it vanished tomorrow (and in fact has become a synonym for "search"). But do we really want to clutter the dictionary with things like MySpace? Or is that better left to personal dictionaries?

If a word is added today because it is the name of a widely known company with millions of users across multiple countries, and then said company suddenly goes bankrupt, and people simply stop talking about it altogether overnight, you'll still be able to notify this same bug tracker and request its removal from the dictionary. Nothing is permanent, and having a few more words in a dictionary database will have no performance impact on your 21th century electronic devices.

The only sensible reason I can think of for not adding the name of a specific company with millions of users across multiple countries is when the company has a name that is very close to a misspelling of another common word.

Suggestion: the spellchecker could highlight 21th and suggest 21st as a correction.

Additions:

romanize
romanized
romanizing
romanization
romanizations

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/romanization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization

Duplicate of this bug: 1860918

Ideation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideation

demonization

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/demonize
(Yes, this isn't the same word. The dictionary is listing it under it's root word.)

oversaturate, oversaturated, oversaturation

endeavour

Ruffalo (Mark Ruffalo).

Please group multiple words in one comment, you're emailing multiple people with each comment.

See also the first comment

Include all possible forms, e.g. plural and genitive for nouns, different tenses for verbs.

Names of personalities (like Ruffalo or Kamala) don't really belong in a dictionary, although I'm sure there are plenty already.

(In reply to Francesco Lodolo [:flod] from comment #22)

Please group multiple words in one comment, you're emailing multiple people with each comment.

See also the first comment

Include all possible forms, e.g. plural and genitive for nouns, different tenses for verbs.

Names of personalities (like Ruffalo or Kamala) don't really belong in a dictionary, although I'm sure there are plenty already.

I'm adding them as I find them. Editing them into one comment after the fact isn't going to reduce anyone's emails.

Common pronouns absolutely do belong in a spellcheck dictionary.

I'm adding them as I find them. Editing them into one comment after the fact isn't going to reduce anyone's emails.

You can keep a list locally, and add a comment when you have a group of them. Updates to the dictionary don't happen frequently, as you can tell from the age of this bug.

IDK why I said pronouns I meant proper nouns.

This doesn't seem like a very good way to keep the dictionary updated. There are several open source word lists meant specifically for spellcheckers that could be pulled from. And Oxford and Merriam-Webster have APIs.

The age of the bug is unrelated to the frequency of dictionary updates; the bug is kept permanently open.

Important names (like Gandhi and Churchill) belong in a spelling dictionary. So do commonly occurring ones like Smith. But there are so many proper names in the world that it's not practical to include them all, especially in the face of local variations that would hide actual typos (e.g., Jhon vs. John). It's a bit of a judgment call, but the general rule is (a) would a substantial subset of users be likely to use this word? (b) are they likely enough to have trouble spelling it that it would be a burden to add it to their personal dictionary? (c) is the word a small typographical error away from a much more commonly used word?

Also, since I'm typing: endeavour is a British spelling. The American one is endeavor.

kleptocrat, kleptocrats

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/kleptocrat

Note that kleptocracy is in there.. You can't have a kleptocracy without kleptocrats.

From bug 1939119

copular (adj.), copula is already covered.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/copular

Duplicate of this bug: 1939119
Assignee: nobody → francesco.lodolo
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Alias: enus-dictionary
Pushed by flodolo@mozilla.com: https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/d266bb661831 Update en-US dictionary with new words, r=bolsson

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/d266bb661831

Status: ASSIGNED → RESOLVED
Closed: 1 year ago
status-firefox136: --- → fixed
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Target Milestone: --- → 136 Branch
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