Soundex

Conceptual, word stem, and soundex searches are possible within the current general framework, but would take quite a bit of work.

Soundex algorithms have been used to index all US censuses from 1920 onwards, and are a staple of family history software.

The Soundex algorithm brings this problem on itself by failing to map the initial letter of each word to a phonetic digit.

A spell check application based on Soundex would not, therefore, offer lamb as a suggested correction for the misspelling lam.

This isn't surprising, since the Soundex algorithm was designed to group names that sound alike, not just those that sound identical.

As a consequence of this irregularity, the Soundex is not particularly well suited to spell checking in the English language.

Line 15 constructs the Soundex by truncating the word to four characters (possibly padded with 0 characters).

For a start, words that sound distinct may have the same soundex.

Unfortunately, the Soundex algorithm is a poor candidate for spell checking.

Metaphones, like Soundex and other algorithms, use a alphanumeric code to represent the verbal pronunciation of a word.

It was this state of affairs that led Lawrence Phillips to find a replacement for the Soundex algorithm, called the Metaphone.

Unlike Soundex, however, metaphone codes are built to match the linguistic variabilities of pronunciation in the English language.

For example, the Soundex gives the phonetically misspelled lam (L500) a different soundex code from the correct form, lamb (L510).