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> Paper dictionaries do tend to be in alphabetical order, but that is > merely an implementation detail. The reason it is in alphabetical > order is *not* so you can read all the entries in alphabetical > order, but rather to facilitate random access. >True for word -> meaning mapping, but dictionaries can also be used >for word -> spelling. If one can at least spell the beginning of the >word, one looks it up & scans the word until finding the wanted one. But having a dictionary in alphabetical order for spelling correction is still an implementation detail. And it's a very poor implementation at that. If you know how to spell a whole word but don't know the first two letters you are lost. Computers can do better than that. Anyone want to build a dictionary with a fuzzy-logic search? :-) >Not that this is a reason to not call hash tables dictionaries, but if we're >going to discuss dictionaries, let's get it right.