--- /dev/null
+ AUXILIARY WORD LISTS\r
+ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ\r
+\r
+\r
+The ENABLE2K supplement includes a number of auxiliary files of words\r
+not generally allowed in Scrabble (r), but which may be of use in\r
+Scrabble variants, anagramming, or other word games. They may also\r
+possibly be of general interest.\r
+\r
+The rules of Scrabble make the following requirements on playable\r
+words:\r
+\r
+1. They must have a traditional part of speech (noun, adjective, etc.),\r
+2. They must not be capitalized (interpreted in American play as not\r
+ allowing any capital letters),\r
+3. They must not be abbreviations, prefixes or suffixes,\r
+4. They must not require a hyphen or apostrophe (or any other symbol\r
+ which is not a letter).\r
+\r
+In addition to the words forbidden by these rules, two other sorts of\r
+words are by general agreement forbidden, though they would seem to be\r
+allowed by the above list. These are acronyms, and inflections of\r
+one-letter words.\r
+\r
+Some acronyms, such as "snafu" and "awol" are not problematic for\r
+Scrabble, while others, such as "pdq" and "tko", are. The distinction\r
+is whether the word is pronounced as a sequence of letters. For\r
+purposes of this discussion, I limit the use of the word "acronym" to\r
+this latter class. (I also stipulate that "Io" is not an acronym in\r
+this sense, despite its pronunciation. This will be relevant if "Io"\r
+(a kind of moth) ever loses its capitalization.)\r
+\r
+Acronyms of this sort have generally been listed in dictionaries as\r
+abbreviations, but in recent years, with the proliferation of acronyms in\r
+everyday usage, this practice is changing. Some dictionaries now list\r
+many acronyms as full-fledged words with parts of speech. For instance, a\r
+majority of popular American dictionaries list "pdq" as an adverb. Such\r
+acronyms do not seem to be excluded by the rules listed above. In fact,\r
+the word "pdq" is listed in printed copies of the OSPD (r) third edition,\r
+though I understand this listing is considered to be erroneous. The file\r
+LCACR.LST contains all the lower-case acronyms listed with a part of\r
+speech by any of the 5 ENABLE source dictionaries (see 2DICTS.DOC). In\r
+the absence of better information, plural formation by adding a lower-case\r
+"s" has been assumed. I have to mention that the acronym "rbi" is given a\r
+secondary pronunciation by the Webster's New World College Dictionary,\r
+which is the same as that of "ribby". If this pronunciation ever becomes\r
+the primary pronunciation, I will have to reluctantly accept "rbi" as a\r
+full-fledged English word.\r
+\r
+(I note, for the record, that the decisions made by lexicographers as\r
+to which acronyms are words and which abbreviations seem quite arbitrary.\r
+Why "pdq" is an adverb, but "asap", which is even pronounceable, is not,\r
+is a mystery. One presumes that with the passage of time standards will\r
+be developed for making this distinction, and that lexicographers will\r
+do better at abiding by them.)\r
+\r
+Another set of troublesome words is the set containing inflections of\r
+one-letter words, such as "ps" and "xed". Nothing in the Scrabble\r
+rules forbids these words, which are listed by several of the source\r
+dictionaries, including MW10. Despite this, in practice these words\r
+are never allowed. These words, which are otherwise self-explanatory,\r
+are listed in the file LETTERS.LST.\r
+\r
+Yet a third set of troublesome words is the set of "pronunciation\r
+spellings", which includes "gonna", "wanna" and "lemme". (The\r
+Encarta (r) dictionary calls these words "contractions", which is\r
+perhaps a better designation.) These words are clearly not allowed in\r
+Scrabble play, as they have no part of speech. Words of this sort from\r
+the ENABLE2K source dictionaries are listed in the file NOPOS.LST. I note\r
+four words which resemble pronunciation spellings, but which are listed in\r
+OSPDADD.LST because they have parts of speech: "gotcha", an interjection,\r
+"gotta", a verb, and "outa"/"outta", which are prepositions.\r
+\r
+ENABLE2K includes two additional files of interesting words containing\r
+upper-case characters (and therefore unavailable for use in Scrabble).\r
+These files were inspired by the description in the printed OSPD of\r
+permitted Scrabble words. Instead of giving a non-capitalization\r
+requirement, OSPD states that "proper names" are not allowed. This is\r
+of course inaccurate, as not every capitalized word is a proper name\r
+(e.g., "Iraqi", "Napoleonic", "Pleistocene" or "Ritalin"), and not\r
+every proper name is capitalized (e.g., "pinyin", "cinquecento"). This\r
+misstatement inspired the production of a list of capitalized words\r
+which are not proper names from two of the source dictionaries (MW10\r
+and WNW4; AHD4 and RHWCD2 were added for the second version of the\r
+ENABLE2K Supplement). Actually, two lists were produced, UPPER.LST,\r
+which contains most such words, and UCACR.LST, which contains those words\r
+which are acronyms. (The definition of "acronym" given above is used\r
+here, so that "SAM", "GUI" and even "RFLP" are not considered to be\r
+acronyms. In fact, I treat any word pronounced as the sequence of its\r
+letters as an acronym, even when the word does not conform to the\r
+classical definition. For instance, I treat "Rx" as an acronym, even\r
+though it does not abbreviate any "R- x-" phrase.)\r
+\r
+In many cases, it was not completely straightforward to decide whether\r
+a word was or was not a proper name, and doubtless some of my decisions\r
+were wrong. I included a name if any definition was not a proper name,\r
+even if the most common definition was. For instance, I included\r
+"Solomon" (a very wise man), even though the most common use of this\r
+word is as a proper name. Some of the assumptions I made in winnowing\r
+out the proper names were as follows: Names of languages (both human\r
+and computer) are proper names, but names of religions and ideologies\r
+are not. Names of holy books (like "Bible" and "Avesta") are not proper\r
+names, but chapters of such books are. Designations of specific times\r
+or historical events (like "Holocaust") are proper names, but recurring\r
+events ("January") or prophecied events which have not yet taken place\r
+("Ragnarok") are not. Of course, all these rules apply only to nouns,\r
+not to other parts of speech. The noun "Arabic" could not be listed,\r
+but the adjective was no problem. I went strictly "by the book" in this\r
+regard. "Romansch" is defined as a noun (a regional language of\r
+Switzerland). From this, one could reasonably infer that "Romansch" is\r
+also used as an adjective, but since this part of speech was never\r
+explicitly shown, I chose not to include this word. I maintained a\r
+similar pedantic distinction between dynasties (proper names) and dynasty\r
+members (not proper names), thus explaining why "Hohenzollern" is listed,\r
+but "Medici" is not.\r
+\r
+Determining the plurals of many of these upper-case words proved even\r
+more challenging than for their lower-case brethren. Listed plurals\r
+usually represent my best guess, and may therefore be incorrect,\r
+perhaps, upon occasion, laughably so. For nouns with a final capital\r
+letter (whether pronounced as acronyms or not), I assume a plural\r
+ending in "'s", unless some other plural is listed. Thus, for most of\r
+the acronymic words, no plural is shown.\r
+\r
+I should further note that I assumed that all trade marks which were\r
+not marked with a part of speech were nouns, and had plurals. This\r
+upon occasion resulted in some dubious entries like "FedExes" and\r
+"Technicolors" in the list.\r
+\r
+Even if the upper-case word lists are worthless for your intended use\r
+of ENABLE, they are worth glancing at, if for no other reason than as a\r
+reminder of how arbitrary the distinctions between noun, proper name and\r
+abbreviation (like most formal distinctions in the English language)\r
+actually are.\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
+\r
+--Alan Beale\r
projects / deb_pkgs / scowl.git / blobdiff