9. A method according to claim 1 comprising the step of forming a spelling classification indication comprising a digitally coded signal identifying any one of at least the following acceptable spelling errors between the query word and the candidate word: a character insertion error, a character deletion error, and a character transposition error.
1. A method using a digital data processing means for separating words with acceptable spellings from words with nonacceptable spellings wherein each word comprises characters assigned character positions, character position in each word being assigned increasing values from one end of the word to the other, characters at the same number of positions from one end of each word being assigned the same value, the two words to be compared being called a query word and a candidate word, the method comprising the steps of: (a) comparing representation of a character in a given character position of the query word with representations of characters in the next lower character position, the same character position, and the next higher character position in the candidate word, and forming a compare type indication representing a match or a mismatch between such query word character and each of such candidate word characters under comparison; (b) changing the given character position of the query word under comparison in the preceding step of comparing to the next higher valued character position of the query word and repeating the preceding step of comparing at least once to form another compare type indication; and (c) processing and utilizing said compare type indications to thereby form a spelling classification indication for one of the words under comparison representing an acceptable spelling or a nonacceptable spelling.