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aspellhunspell

Why does aspell suggest the very word that it fails to check?

Here is the command I run:

> echo "civilization" | aspell -a
@(#) International Ispell Version 3.1.20 (but really Aspell 0.60.6.1)
& civilization 3 0: civilization, civilizations, civilization's

Why does aspell suggest the very word ("civilization") but fails to check its spelling? In contrast, hunspell seems to get this right

> echo "civilization" | hunspell
Hunspell 1.3.2
*

but that is probably because the two spell checkers use different dictionaries.

EDIT: Running this on a different machine and different/older aspell version seems to work though:

> echo civilization | aspell -a
@(#) International Ispell Version 3.1.20 (but really Aspell 0.60.3)
*
Solution

  • According to Kevin Atkinson (aspell maintainer, link) that's a bug and he wasn't sure if there's a report open for it. He wasn't sure if/when this will get fixed either.