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diff --git a/systems/mac/support/excalibur/Excalibur-dictionaries/Italian_Supplement_ReadMe.txt b/systems/mac/support/excalibur/Excalibur-dictionaries/Italian_Supplement_ReadMe.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..04c21fd873 --- /dev/null +++ b/systems/mac/support/excalibur/Excalibur-dictionaries/Italian_Supplement_ReadMe.txt @@ -0,0 +1,103 @@ + +About the "Italian Supplement" for Excalibur. + + +The "Italian Supplement" spelling dictionary contains 184,000 Italian +words and occupies 1.6 Mb on the hard drive. It isn't useful on its +own because it doesn't contain basic vocabulary. However it can be +used to supplement the 62,000 words in the "Italian Dictionary" +provided by Paolo Matteucci. The two together give Excalibur access +to a total of 246,000 Italian words. + +The "Italian Supplement" is not 100% accurate. Users who need maximum +accuracy should stick to using just Paolo Matteucci's "Italian +Dictionary". However people who need the extra words will find the +"Italian Supplement" useful in spite of its having some defects. + + +Installing the "Italian Supplement" for use with Excalibur. + +Put the "Italian Supplement" into the folder in which you keep +Excalibur. If you prefer to store it somewhere else, put an alias for +it into the folder in which you keep Excalibur. + +On Excalibur's Dictionary menu, choose Open Dictionary.... Navigate +to find the "Italian Supplement', select it, and click Open. + +If you want the "Italian Supplement" to be opened automatically when +you launch Excalibur in future, choose Preferences.... from the +Options menu. In the Preferences window, check the box called Load +currently active dictionaries. Click Save Now. + + +About this revision. + +The "Italian Supplement" is a reduced and partly-revised version of a +larger list of about 277,000 words which has been available at the +Excalibur site since early in 1997. There were some problems with +that very large list. + +- It didn't contain any accents. Words that ought to be written with + an accent appeared in their unaccented form. The list has been + searched for words that ought to have an accent, and so far as + possible the accented form has been substituted. It wasn't + practicable to search for every word that ought to bear an accent. + Almost all the accented parts of the future tense have been + corrected, and almost all words that should end in -t\`a. Some + accented parts of the passato remoto tense have been corrected or + added. Other words have been corrected if they were found, but the + result is patchy. + +- There were too many non-Italian words. Modern Italian is adopting + lots of non-Italian words, especially in the fields of sport, + popular music, and information technology. However the list looked + as if it included almost every foreign word that the original + compiler had come across, and the result seemed excessive. The list + was searched for words containing j, k, w, x, or y, and for words + ending with u or with a consonant. Some of them are genuine Italian + words, or words that have become a recognised part of modern + Italian. Most of the "good words" have been left as they were, but + many foreign intruders have been deleted. It wasn't practicable to + search for every non-Italian word. The list wasn't searched for + foreign words ending in a, e, i or o, so the "Italian Supplement" + probably still contains some non-Italian words. + +- There were too many words starting with A and B. This resulted from + the previous merger of two separate word lists. One of those lists + covered the whole alphabet and contained 245,000 words; the other + covered only the letters A and B and contained 32,000 additional + words. Most of the 32,000 extra "A-B" words have been removed from + the "Italian Supplement". They are available as a separate + collection. If you want them, look for "Italian A-B words" on the + Excalibur site. + +- It contained numerous words that were already included in Paolo + Matteucci's "Italian Dictionary". These words have been deleted + from the "Italian Supplement". + +Hyphenated words and Roman numerals have been deleted. A few spelling +mistakes were found and corrected, but the list didn't seem to contain +many mistakes. The main reference work used was Il Grande Dizionario +Garzanti. The accents are generally as shown in that work. + +It is nice to have the opportunity to express appreciation to Rick +Zaccone and Rob Gottshall for the indispensable program Excalibur, to +Paolo Matteucci whose "Italian Dictionary" for Excalibur is invaluable +in so many ways, not least in helping with this revision of the +"Italian Supplement" list, and especially to Jacek Iwanski. His +shareware program "Verbs & Nouns Lookup" handles bilingual +dictionaries and verb tables, does word-for-word translation, and is a +spellchecker too. A recent innovation in that program has made it +practicable to remove defective and surplus words from the "Italian +Supplement". If you'd like more information about his software, visit +his home page at <http://users.netmatters.co.uk/dandaforbes>, or write +to him at <jaceki@geocities.com>, or to me (see below). An +English-to-Italian translation module is expected to become available +in the near future. + +Anyone who wants to revise the "Italian Supplement" further is welcome +to do so. + +Adrienne Forbes +email: dandaforbes@netmatters.co.uk +September 1998 |