>  It is a long time since I read that part of my copy of Knuth, and
>  it currently resides in Canada, while I reside in Germany, but I
>  seem to recall that he did give a reference for his algorithm.
 
    I have  copy of the Soundex  algorithm, translated to Rexx  from a
PL/I program  in VMSHARE's NOTE  SOUNDEX.  The original PL/I  code was
done by  Ezra Goldman of  the University  of Illinois at  Chicago.  He
attributes the  "secret algorizm" to an  IBM publication (GC20-1707-0)
"Identification Techniques".  His  code is dated 1978, so  if you're a
pack rat, you might have a copy in your manual library.
 
>  I assume sounmds was a typing error!  Would SOUNDEX consider it
>  equivalent to sounds?   :-)
 
Yes:
 
     Soundex('sounds') = 'S532'
     Soundex('sounmds') = 'S532'
 
That's the whole idea, right?
 
Ross Patterson
Rutgers University