ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ ENABLE ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ The Enhanced North American Benchmark LExicon (ENABLE) is the most thoroughly researched, and therefore the most authoritative word list and reference available for Scrabble players. The word list file itself retains the name WORD.LST, to retain compatibility with the WORDY utilities (http://personal.riverusers.com/~thegrendel/wordy530.zip) originally written for it. The word list is in plain ASCII format, unencrypted, and is placed in the Public Domain for anyone to use as they see fit. It is non-proprietary, free, and freely available for any legal use. Moreover, it is "open source" in the sense that the researcher and compiler, Alan Beale, carefully explains and elucidates the reasoning that has influenced his judgments on which words belong in the list and why. The first edition of ENABLE has become a recognized standard and a benchmark for the Scrabble community. This revised millennial edition continues in the same proud tradition. Since the release of its first edition, in the fall of 1997, ENABLE has become something of a de facto standard for electronic word lists used by word gamers. It has been adopted by developers and programmers for interactive on-line word game servers and word construction (anagramming) software. The master word list in ENABLE, WORD.LST, is *not* the so-called TWL98, a proprietary word list prepared by an "official" dictionary committee with a corporate agenda. On the contrary, it is an even more accurate and authoritative reference for the serious Scrabble player. It is primarily the result of a single unifying vision, that of Alan Beale, who dedicated countless hours to research. ENABLE therefore represents not merely a superior alternative to the OSPD/TWL, it threatens to supplant and replace it, to squeeze the very life out of it in a process of Darwinian selection. ENABLE reflects the changes to the OSPD that went into place as of January 1, 1998, so many "old friends", such as "vin" and "da" have now disappeared. The original WORD.LST contained 100,701 words, this enhanced Y2K update has 173,528. This word list would not have been possible without the help of a number of people in the Scrabble community, most notably Alan Beale for his tireless research, and to them go my thanks. This revised second edition of ENABLE incorporates the words added to the new printings of MW10, as well as Alan Beale's research into obscure plurals and other lexicographic arcana. Ample documentation for the claims of accuracy and authoritativeness of the ENABLE list is contained in the SUPP2K.ZIP archive, particularly in the file TWL_ENAB.DOC. This file contains a detailed listing of the differences between the ENABLE list and the DOOM/TWL98 list, including sources and justifications for the additions and corrections. The master word list, WORD.LST, contains all 70 of the MW10 "also called" words. These are the italicized entries in the MW10 hidden in definitions of other words with the notation "also called". An example of this is found in the entry for "streelight", wherein is the notation "also called streetlamp". Therefore, the word "streetlamp" belongs in the ENABLE WORD.LST. A complete list of these "also called" words, with appropriate cross-references, may be found in the ALSO.LST file in the SUPP2K.ZIP archive. Note that the DOOM/TWL98 list opened this particular "can of worms" with the adoption of the word "starfruit", found in the definition of "carambola". Nevertheless, the DOOM/TWL98 list still omits some of the plurals of these words. This edition of ENABLE benefits from the painstaking research on obscure plurals done by Alan Beale. He unearthed a number of explicit plurals in MW10 that OSPD and other lists omit (see PLURALS.DOC in the supplementary archive). This alone gives ENABLE a significant advantage over OSPD and TWL. In contrast to other word lists, the ENABLE list has not been crippled by being limited to words under an arbitrary length. The ENABLE list is eminently suitable for most word games, such as Anagrams and Clabbers, and for crossword puzzle solving, rather than just for Scrabble. A great deal of research has gone into removing this limitation, however the list is much the better for it. The file SIGWORD.LST is a list of the 1024 words in WORD.LST that do not appear in the OSPD or MW10, but either appear in other standard sources or are words the ENABLE maintainers believe worthy of lexicographic recognition. These "signature words" distinguish this list from others. Of course, those wishing to may delete the SIGWORD.LST words from the WORD.LST in order to obtain a more "standardized" listing. This may be accomplished simply and quickly using the UNIX "comm" utility in the following manner: comm -23 word.lst sigword.list > word.lst.new. This will create the file "word.lst.new" with the signature words deleted. As of this update, it is no longer necessary for DOS and Windows users to resort to manually editing the WORD.LST file to remove the SIGWORD.LST words. Alan Beale's MAKELIST utility, distributed in the supplementary archive, provides the opportunity to build custom lists by combining selected auxiliary lists from the ENABLE2K supplement with the base list. Even UNIX users may find MAKELIST more convenient than running built-ins from the command line or a script. ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ The ENABLE master word list, WORD.LST, is herewith formally released into the Public Domain. Anyone is free to use it or distribute it in any manner they see fit. No fee or registration is required for its use nor are "contributions" solicited (if you feel you absolutely must contribute something for your own peace of mind, the authors of the ENABLE list ask that you make a donation on their behalf to your favorite charity). This word list is our gift to the Scrabble community, as an alternate to "official" word lists. Game designers may feel free to incorporate the WORD.LST into their games. Please mention the source and credit us as originators of the list. Note that if you, as a game designer, use the WORD.LST in your product, you may still copyright and protect your product, but you may *not* legally copyright or in any way restrict redistribution of the WORD.LST portion of your product. This *may* under law restrict your rights to restrict your users' rights, but that is only fair. It is to be expected that the maintainers of the OSPD and TWL will benefit from the research done for ENABLE. If these people incorporate portions of ENABLE into their lists, this may compromise the copyrighted proprietary status of those lists. The accuracy of the WORD.LST is due, in great part, to the herculean efforts of Alan Beale. He has put in many hours of multi-dictionary research in checking conjugations, inflections, plurals, and obscure parts of speech of thousands of words. In every sense of the word, he is as much the father of the word list as anyone. Ross Beresford (ross@bryson.demon.co.uk) has incorporated the WORD.LST from the first edition of ENABLE into his North American Scrabble version of his excellent TEA word list generation / analysis program. See his home page, http://www.bryson.demon.co.uk/, for word list info and more details of TEA. ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ WORD.LST (pronounced "word-dot-list") is the generic term for the ASCII-format word file released into the Public Domain as a standard and a reference for crossword-type games. As laptop and palmtop computers have become more common and affordable, it is convenient to use the WORD.LST in conjunction with utilities such as SEARCH.EXE and JUDGE.EXE (parts of the WORDY package) to adjudicate disputes in word game competitive play. The OSPD in its various versions and incarnations is not particularly well suited for this application as it is poorly organized, sometimes difficult to interpret, and clumsy to use (try locating the word PELVES in the printed OSPD, for example). Furthermore, the WORD.LST is free from corporate politics and agendas, scheming and conniving, committee wrangling, "politically correct" appeasement, compromising, greed, and all other such nonsense. The WORD.LST is yours, word game players! Use it. Help keep it updated and corrected. Distribute it (you do *not* need permission to do so, but tell us about it)! ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ Scrabble and OSPD are trademarks owned by Milton Bradley, a division of Hasbro. Windows is a trademark of the Microsoft Corporation. WORDY is *not* copyrighted and is *not* a trademark. It may be found under 'W' in any dictionary, just as scrabble, the verb, may be found under 'S'. The make-believe word "hasbro" may be whimsically defined as "possessing a male sibling" (named Milton, I guess). ENABLE is not a trademark. WORD.LST is not a trademark. This whole trademark business has been taken to ridiculous extremes. ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ Disclaimer: Neither I nor Alan Beale is in any way associated with the so-called "Official Dictionary Committee", nor with the NSA in any of its guises or avatars (i.e., neither the National Scrabble Association nor the National Security Agency). We did not and do not have direct access to the so-called TWL98, and the ENABLE list is not derivative from it. We do believe, however, the the ENABLE list is more thoroughly researched, more accurate, and therefore a more authoritative and generally useful replacement for the TWL98 list. ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ Important note: The supplementary archive, SUPP2K.ZIP, is a valuable adjunct to ENABLE. It supplies additional word lists, Alan Beale's "makelist" utility for combining and expurgating lists, and the must-read documentation files on word list research on plurals. The resources in this supplement make possible creating one's own "SOWPODS" list, creating custom combined lists, or even lists with "nasty words" removed, suitable for family use. ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜ M\Cooper thegrendel@theriver.com http://personal.riverusers.com/~thegrendel/