Counting elements in a list wildcard

[Edward Elliott]

John Machin wrote:
> On 25/04/2006 3:15 PM, Edward Elliott wrote:
>>  Phoneme matching seems overly complex and might
>> grab things like Tsu-zi.
> 
> It might *only* if somebody had a rush of blood to the head and devised
> yet another phonetic key "algorithm". Tsuzi does *not* give the same
> result as any of Suzi, Suzie, Susi, and Susie when pushed through any of
> the following; Soundex, NYSIIS, Metaphone, Dolby, and Caverphone. None
> of them throw away the 'T' sound.

Spelling isn't phonetic.  The 't' character doesn't necessarily affect
pronounciation.  Or it may affect pronounciation in a way the soundex
doesn't understand (think tonal languages).  Latinizing foreign languages
raises all sorts of problems.

A soundex is only as good as its pronounciation database.  It may work well
in many situations, but it isn't fool-proof.