12. A handheld electronic device structured to identify a proposed spelling correction for a word that has been determined to at least potentially be misspelled, the handheld electronic device comprising: a processor apparatus comprising a processor and a memory and having available thereto a data source comprising a plurality of words; an input apparatus structured to provide input to the processor apparatus, the input apparatus comprising a plurality of input member, at least some of the input members each having a plurality of characters assigned thereto; an output apparatus structured to receive output signals from the processor apparatus; the memory having stored therein a number of routines which, when executed on the processor, cause the handheld electronic device to perform operations comprising: receiving from a data source a series of characters of a candidate spelling correction; making a determination for each character of at least a portion of the series that at least one of: the character validly corresponds with a predetermined portion of a canonical version of the word, and the character is, according to at least one spell check algorithm from among a number of spell check algorithms, within a predetermined edit distance from a predetermined portion of the canonical version of the word; determining for one character of the series that the character is, according to the at least one spell check algorithm, within an edit distance of one from a predetermined portion of the canonical version of the word; and outputting at least a portion of the candidate spelling correction as a proposed spelling correction.
16. The handheld electronic device of claim 12 wherein the operations further comprise: generating a data set comprising for each character of a canonicalized form of the word a character set comprising the characters that are equivalent thereto, and employing the data set as the canonical version of the word.