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Page 223

The Second Program

Once the proofreading is completed and the corrected cards inserted into the deck, an alphabetical word-list may then be generated. Whereas the first program gave in output only a list of errors which it found, this program could give an alphabetical list of every combination of key-strikes in the work (the machine does not think in terms of 'words'; it recognizes combinations of key-strikes bounded by blank spaces), along with a frequency count of each item. The frequency-list is what Larry D. Benson calls "the normal by-product of a machine-produced concordance,"[8] and is so easy to produce that one should appear in every computer-assisted concordance. A quick proofreading of this list may turn up errors not caught in the oral proofreading.