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soundex

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soundex

(algorithm, text)
An algorithm for encoding a word so that similar sounding words encode the same. The first letter is copied unchanged then subsequent letters are encoded as follows:

bfpv -> "1" cgjkqsxz? -> "2" dt -> "3" l -> "4" mn? -> "5" r -> "6"

Other characters are ignored and repeated characters are encoded as though they were a single character. Encoding stops when the resulting string is four characters long, adding trailing "0"s if it is shorter. For example, "SMITH" or "SMYTHE" would both be encoded as "S530".
This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)

Soundex

A system for coding English words based on their sound rather than their spelling. Developed in the early 20th century, a Soundex is used to index and match words. The vowels are dropped, and all remaining consonants are assigned three digits except for the first, which is the first letter of the word. There have been several variants of Soundex, but there are far more sophisticated methods for coding speech in today's voice recognition systems. See voice recognition.
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References in periodicals archive
'Soundex' codes of surnames provide confidentiality and accuracy in a national HIV database.
SoundEx's Gene Shackelford said that most owners combine soundproofing with either an interior or avionics upgrade.
Phonetic algorithms for matching strings have been discussed in context to English language by various researchers from SoundEx [8,9], Metaphone [10,11] and Phonix [12].
Then look into the International Soundex Reunion Registry (isrr.org) at (888) 886-ISRR.
I thought surely that I could locate brothers or sisters by examining the Soundex files for the 1880 Federal Census, which indexed by surname all families having one or more children under ten years of age.
The data were matched by mother's social security number, date of birth, first and last name, and soundex of first and last name, using SAS 9.2 and LinkPro 3.0.
Reference dataset was also populated by two new fields: city name soundex field and street name soundex field.
Se han desarrollado funciones de similitud para la deteccion de duplicados; algunas de ellas son de tipo fonetico como Soundex [5], Metaphone [6] Double Metaphone [7] Onca [8] Nysiis [9].
More complex algorithms based on Levenshtein distance (Levenshtein 1966) or soundex (NARA 2010) were not used, as Airport Limousine's clientele has similar demographic profiles and similar address samples were readily available in the historical data.
(33) Soundex Index to Petitions for Naturalization filed in Federal, Slate, and Local Courts located in New York City, 1792-1989 (New York, NY: National Archives and Records Administration, Northeast Region: "Classified Ad 8," The New York Amsterdam News, September 18, 1937, 23; Roi Ottley, New World A-Coming: Inside Black America (Cleveland, OH: The World Publishing Company, 1945), 55.
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