SCRABBLE® Brand Crossword Game is a registered trademark of Hasbro, Inc. in Canada and the U.S.A. and of J.W. Spear & Son elsewhere.
In April 1997, we completed our first task, the compilation of a list of two to nine letter words (and inflections) that will be available through the NSA, and will take effect March 2nd, 1998. Complete details concerning the changes involved are available on a separate page. NSA members in Canada and the U.S. can order the word list for US$9.95 according to the instructions given in the newsletter.
I consider it unfortunate that the NSA word list is difficult to defend against people who object to the presence of specific words (generally, those that are unfamiliar to them, or which fail to meet some validity criterion in their eyes). It is therefore my personal wish that the committee (1) set out clear rules for determining which words are to be acceptable, and (2) make publicly available a database which lists the reasons for which each word is considered acceptable.
In partial fulfillment of (2), in July 1997, I set up a lookup service that lists the reference sources that validate specific words. As of when this is being written, I have not yet had the time or funding to enter the bulk of what information would make this a useful service, but interested users may try entering words from the end of the dictionary: I have MW10 entered from W-Z, and smaller portions of other dictionaries.