X-Git-Url: https://git.donarmstrong.com/?a=blobdiff_plain;ds=sidebyside;f=current%2Fr%2Fenable-sup%2Fcosspd.doc;fp=current%2Fr%2Fenable-sup%2Fcosspd.doc;h=0000000000000000000000000000000000000000;hb=b13ea8a082364672c6de2b010e558211ff52ec9a;hp=ac4d7101591c3907cc0f7f866c44dda1e7503b28;hpb=01534a94130c1f5a3a230cf4fe18365a235ba271;p=deb_pkgs%2Fscowl.git diff --git a/current/r/enable-sup/cosspd.doc b/current/r/enable-sup/cosspd.doc deleted file mode 100644 index ac4d710..0000000 --- a/current/r/enable-sup/cosspd.doc +++ /dev/null @@ -1,224 +0,0 @@ - OSPD ORIGINS AND CURRENCY -ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ - - -One of the results of the researches that have taken place in producing -the ENABLE2K word lists is documentation of the deficiencies of the OSPD -(the Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary). Notably, the ENABLE2K -OSPDADD list includes over 6500 words which ought to be present in the -OSPD, but are not. During work on the most recent revision of ENABLE2K, -I became interested in the opposite question, namely, how many words in -OSPD were mistakes, that is, words which should not have been included -according to the original criteria by which the OSPD was constructed. - -It is beyond my power to answer that question, as OSPD was assembled from -a number of out-of-print dictionaries, such as the Merriam-Webster -Collegiate 9th edition and the American Heritage College Dictionary -2nd edition, which I do not own. In place of this question, I have -tried to determine instead what words of OSPD have become stale, that -is, are not included in recent dictionaries of the sort from which OSPD -was composed. After much labor, I have produced a list showing, for -each OSPD word, a contemporary dictionary in which it may be found, or -the absence of any. Additionally, after haunting eBay for some months, -I have come into possession of the 1973 Funk and Wagnall's College -Dictionary, which was one of the primary sources of the original OSPD, -and which has enabled me to reduce the number of words of completely -unknown provenance to a small fraction of the total. - -The result of these researches is the COSSPD.LST file. This file -contains all the words of OSPD, plus those of OSPDADD.LST and the -OSPD-eligible words from MW10ADD.LST. Each word is preceded by two -characters, indicating where a definition of (or reference to) the -word is to be found. The first character supplies a historical -perspecive on the word, while the second character provides a more -recent perspective. The encoding of this information is described -later in this document. - -A summary of statistics derived from COSSPD.LST follows. I find it -noteworthy that each of the source dictionaries has contributed a -significant fraction of the total. - -Note that each category is limited to words not in any previous category, -except where stated otherwise. (See below for explanation of the -dictionary acronyms.) - -Of the 100940 OSPD words, - - . 70861 words (70.2 %) are found in both MW10 and another recent - dictionary. - . 3215 words (3.2 %) are found solely in MW10. - . 7226 words (7.2 %) are found in RHWCD2. - . 3747 words (3.7 %) are found in AHD3 or AHD4. Most of these - (3090) are also found in AHCD3. - . 3478 words (3.4 %) are found in WNWCD3 or WNWCD4. - . 752 words (0.7 %) are found in RHWCD1. - . 5725 words (5.7 %) are found in the 1973 F&WCD. - . 3329 words (3.3 %) were not found in any OSPD source I consulted. - . Of the words in the previous two categories, 520 (0.5 %) are - to be found in EWED1. The rest are the words I refer to as - "stale". - . 2605 words (2.6 %) are inflections of words not explicitly - supported by the OSPD sources, including inflections for words - whose part of speech is omitted. Of these, 1055 are listed by - NI3. Over half of the total (1303) are inflections of words - from F&WCD. - -COSSPD.LST also contains 6754 words from recent dictionary editions. -These words are eligible for OSPD but are not present, either due to -oversight or because they were added after the most recent OSPD was -compiled. Statistics on these words are as follows: - - . 191 words (2.8 %) are from MW10. - . 1781 words (26.4 %) are from RHWCD2. - . 1882 words (27.9 %) are from AHD3 or AHD4. - . 418 words (6.2 %) are from WNWCD3 or WNWCD4. - . 1847 words (27.3 %) are from EWED1. - . 625 words (9.3 %) are from RHWCD1. - . 10 words (0.1 %) are additional inflections of OSPD words I - believe to be correct, but which are not listed in any of the - OSPD sources. - -The file STALE.LST contains the "stale words" referred to above. These -are the OSPD words for which no recent source (of the size of MW10 or -RHWCD2) could be found, and their inflections. A few of these words, -such as "fishbone", "lima" and "unmended", are still current, and their -omission from recent dictionaries seems rather surprising, but by and -large they are extremely obscure, and unlikely to be missed by any but -the most fanatical word game devotees. - -The annotations of COSSPD.LST and their meanings are as follows: - - = - Indicates a word found in MW10. (See note 1.) - . - Indicates a word found in the Random House Webster's College - Dictionary 2nd edition (RHWCD2). - &,@ - Indicates a word found in an American Heritage dictionary. - (See note 2). - > - Indicates a word found in Webster's New World College - Dictionary, 3rd or 4th edition (WNWCD3/4). - % - Indicates a word found in the 1973 Funk and Wagnall's College - Dictionary (F&WCD) (first column only). - # - Indicates a word found in the Encarta World English Dictionary, - first edition (EWED1) (second column only). - : - Indicates a word found in the Random House Webster's College - Dictionary 1st edition (RHWCD1). (See note 3.) - " - Indicates an inflection not found in or implied by any source - dictionary, but endorsed by the Merriam-Webster New International - 3 (NI3) CD-ROM. (See notes 4 through 6.) - ^ - Indicates an inflection not found in or implied by any source - dictionary, and not shown by the NI3 CD-ROM. (See notes 4 - and 5.) - ` - Indicates a British variant of an included word not explicitly - mentioned by any of the source dictionaries. (See note 7.) - - - Indicates a word still in the published OSPD3, but which was - removed by the TWL98 reform. - + - Indicates a word not present in OSPD (first column only). - blank - Indicates a word not in any of these categories. In column - 1, a blank indicates that I could not find the word in any - historical source (omitting Encarta); while in column 2 it - indicates it could not be found in any modern source (omitting - the Funk and Wagnall's dictionary). - -Notes: - -1. If a word is annotated with "=" in both columns, it indicates the -word was not found in any modern source other than MW10. (About 65 % -of the words are shown as "=.", meaning they are listed by both MW10 and -RHWCD2.) - -2. The "&" symbol has a slightly different meaning in the two columns. -According to the Scrabble FAQ, the American Heritage source dictionary -for OSPD was the American Heritage College Dictionary (AHCD3). In -researching ENABLE2K, I have instead generally used the full American -Heritage Dictionary (AHCD3/4), which is available on CD-ROM. In the -second column, "&" indicates this dictionary. In the first column, "&" -indicates the American Heritage College Dictionary, and "@" is used to -reference words listed in the full American Heritage Dictionary, but not -in the College Dictionary. Also note that this list uses both the 3rd -and 4th editions of the full American Heritage Dictionary, but only the -3rd edition of the College Dictionary, as the 4th edition was not -released until this work was almost completed. - -3. I should probably regard the Random House Webster's College 1st -edition as now "stale", as the last printing was in 1995. I have -decided not to do so on the basis that many copies are still in use, -and also because this is a very fine dictionary which I hate to write -off. Thousands of words from the 1st edition were removed from the -2nd, and it is the only "current" source for many of them. - -4. As anyone who has looked at PLURALS.DOC knows, the question of -validating inflections is very complex and vexing. I did not want to -complicate these OSPD researches further with trying to ascertain the -validity of all inflections listed in OSPD. Therefore, I adopted an -agnostic policy for inflections. If a word was shown in a source -dictionary without inflections, I assumed the inflections were regular, -even if I knew better. As a simple example, I am well aware that the -plural of "fireman" is "firemen". But MW10 lists "fireman" without -showing an explicit plural, leading me to treat "firemen" as not shown -in MW10, even though the compilers of that volume certainly intended it -to be implied. This has sometimes had the effect of making some of -the inflections of a word appear to have a different source from the -word itself. - -5. "^" has a secondary meaning. Some of the source dictionaries -include lists of words with common prefixes, such as "anti-", "pre-" -and "un-", which do not show parts of speech. Inflections of such -words, regular or not, are shown with a "^" or """ annotation unless -some other dictionary shows the appropriate part of speech. - -6. The Merriam-Webster NI3 CD-ROM is a relatively recent addition to -my collection of electronic dictionaries. I was interested to discover -during this research how much effect the contents of NI3 had on OSPD. -Many of the stranger inflections of OSPD, such as "sensiblest" and -"enuresises", are to be found there, and nowhere else. Once I made -this connection, I made a distinction between unsupported inflections -mentioned in NI3 and the remainder. About 1 in 3 of these inflections -showed up in NI3. (The percentage is significantly greater than that -if one excludes the inflections of words without an explicit part of -speech discussed in note 5.) - -7. I remember, when the 2nd edition of OSPD was current, that its cover -boldly proclaimed "Now includes Canadian words!" This led me to suspect -that perhaps it had been "padded" with unsupported British variants of -words. My suspicion was not confirmed. I marked unsupported British -variants of OSPD words with a "`", but there turned out to be relatively -few of them (171). It is more reasonable to suppose that they were -present in some of the earlier editions of the source dictionaries (such -as MW9) than that they were added for marketing reasons. - - -Mendel and I have occasionally been asked to supply definitions of the -words in the ENABLE2K list. We have seen no need to undertake that labor, -as, with the exception of the signature words, all the ENABLE2K words are -defined in either OSPD or in MW10. However, we must admit that we have -not provided definitions of the words in the various supplemental lists, -which derive from multiple sources. It should now be noted that, for -the subset of supplemental words eligible for inclusion in OSPD, the -COSSPD.LST file helps meet that need. For any unfamiliar short word not -listed in OSPD, its COSSPD.LST entry indicates a specific current -dictionary in which a definition can be found, all of which are -available online, with the exception of RHWCD1. (And the RHWCD1 -words can generally also be found in the Random House Unabridged -Dictionary, which is available on CD-ROM.) - - -A final note is an explanation of the file name COSSPD.LST. COSSPD is -an acronym for Contemporary Open Source Scrabble Player's Dictionary, -which is the name I have given to the collection of words from -COSSPD.LST which do not have a blank (or a minus) in the second column. -This list is contemporary because it omits words from long-out-of-print -sources, and includes words from recent sources such as the Encarta -dictionary. The list is "open source" because it makes explicit the -origin of its contents; every word can be checked (and corrected, if -mistakes are found). Because of these two characteristics, I believe -it be superior to the OSPD, both for practical use and for fulfilling -the original intent behind its creation. - - - - -Scrabble is a trademark of the Milton Bradley Co., Inc. -The OSPD is a trademark of the Milton Bradley Co., Inc. -Encarta is a trademark of the Microsoft Corp. - - ---Alan Beale