15. A circuit for retrieving information from a directory in response to a sequence of spoken characters in accordance with claim 14 wherein said modified candidate word generating means comprises means responsive to said detected mismatched position for substituting the next most probable character in the detected mismatched position of the array in the detected mismatched position of the candidate word.
14. A circuit for retrieving information from a directory in response to a sequence of spoken characters comprising a directory store for storing reference words, each reference word comprising a set of prescribed characters and each reference word addressing associated information in said directory store; means for receiving a sequence of spoken character signals; means responsive to each received spoken character signal for generating a set of probable characters; means connected to said probable character set generating means for storing each set of probable characters in most to least probable order for said spoken character signal in a predetermined position of a left to right position ordered array; means responsive to the storing of the final probable character set of the sequence for generating a candidate word comprising the most probable character of each position of the probable character set array; means for storing said candidate word; means responsive to the storing of said candidate word for generating a first signal; directory store search means responsive to said first signal for searching said directory store to determine directory store reference words corresponding to the sequence of spoken characters comprising means responsive to the stored candidate word for selecting a sequence of directory store reference words; means for comparing each directory store reference word of the selected sequence with the stored candidate word in a left to right character sequence to detect directory store reference words that match said stored candidate word; means responsive to the nonmatching directory store reference words of the selected sequence for detecting the rightmost first occurring mismatched position of all nonmatching directory store reference words of the selected sequence; means jointly responsive to the absence of a detected matching directory store reference word in said selected sequence and the detected rightmost first occurring mismatched position of said selected sequence for generating a modified candidate word and for storing said modified candidate word in said candidate word storing means; means responsive to the storing of said modified candidate word for generating a first signal to initiate a next directory store reference word search; means responsive to the detection of at least one matching directory store reference word in a selected sequence for retrieving the associated information of each detected matching directory store reference word; and means for forming a spoken message corresponding to said associated information.