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