Ftealth fcanno

A ftealth fcanno is a specific kind of stealth scanno that occurs when a long s character forms a valid word in an OCR text, but not the word that appears in the page image.

• EXAMPLE: ſit in the page image appears as fit in the OCR text.

Distributed Proofreaders's coining of the term ftealth fcanno was inspired by its definition of stealth scanno and because long s (ſ) most often appears as f (f) in OCR texts.

Ftealth Fcanno List

Below is a list of ftealth fcannos from OCR texts processed by Distributed Proofreaders. Each line is shown as

what the OCR has: what the printed text says

The “variations” subsections show words with additional errors, such as rn/m or e/c/o, along with the main long-s error.

Misreadings of ſ (long s) alone

f for ſ (long s)

fable: sable
faint: saint
fat: sat
feat: seat
fee: see
fell: sell
fit: sit
fix: six
flight: slight
flower: slower
foil: soil
fold: sold
fore: sore
foul: soul
found: sound
four: sour
infect: insect
Ruffian: Russian
Sifter: Sister
wafted: wasted

variations on f for ſ

affection: assertion
fame: some
farrowing: sorrowing
fear: soar, scar
felicit-: solicit-
felt: self
file: she
filtration: situation
finer: since
fire: she
force: some
forcing: solacing
forfeit: surfeit
fried: shed
fry: say
puffed: passed
refinance: resistance
refutation: resolution

l for ſ (long s)

allure: assure
appeal(ed/ing): appeas(ed/ing)
curled: cursed
belt: best
dole: dose
kill-: kiss-
lake: sake
lay: say
law: saw
lent: sent
let: set
light: sight
link: sink
lung: sung
mill(ion): miss(ion)
pals: pass
paltry: pastry
relent: resent
role: rose
talk: task
whole: whose

variations on l for ſ

annulment: amusement
dole: close
learning: seeming
lenience: sentence
levied: sealed

Misreadings of ſt (long s + t ligature)

ll or il for ſt (long s + t ligature)

bellow: bestow
bell: best
fall: fast
call: cast
poll: post
lull: lost
mill: mist
moil: most
pallor: pastor
vail: vast
villas: vistas

fl or fi ligatures for ſt (long s + t ligature)

firing: string
flag: stag
flaring: staring
flock: stock
fluff: stuff

variations on fl or fi for ſt

flapped: stopped
florin: storm
lift: last

tt for ſt (long s + t ligature)

matter: master
mutt: must
fatten: fasten
whittling: whistling

d for ſt (long s + t ligature)

damp: stamp
dart: start
dat-: stat-
dorm: storm
drain: strain
driv-: striv-
drove: strove
dun: stun
bud: bust
cad: cast
cod: cost
intrud-: intrust-
mad: mast
mud: must
pod: post
wad-: wast-
word: worst

In addition, any word ending in est may be misread as ed. Fortunately, not many words in this form can sneak past both spell checking and smooth reading.

variations on d for ſt

bedew: bestow
Chad: Christ
choked: choicest
cleared: dearest
drifted: strictest
evidence: existence
lade: taste
load: least
recoiled: recollect

Miscellaneous

confided: confessed (d for ſſ)
misted: misled (st for ſl)
competition: composition (t for ſ)