Related to my last post about Text-mining and shorthand words, it will be fun to see how text-mining software handles context.  Imagine a restaurant customer feedback form where the customer wrote:

"The service and food were horrible.  JK.  You guys rocked, we had a great time."

So here we have some sarcasm.  The JK, which is short for "just kidding" basically nullifies the first sentence.  So there are some sentences that change the meaning of preceeding or following sentences. 

From what I know about text-mining software, the user has to train it according to the types of comments that will be fed into it.  Basically the user creates an algorithm (a black box so to speak) that will process the comments correctly.  I don't have this issue with my comment analysis at work because the black box is my interpretation of the comment.

Here is another one to ponder.  What about slang?  For example:

"That waitress is sic, yo". 

Was the waitress actually sick or is sic slang for good?