From: DLPratt123@aol.com
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 17:10:41 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: SOWPODS as a METAPHOR
Message-id: <970925170913_1429252469@emout05.mail.aol.com>

In a message dated 97-09-24 05:16:10 EDT, thogr04@mail.cai.com writes:

<< Dan Pratt once posted a list of all the 2lw he could find, with their presence in each of a large number of dictionaries noted. I seem to remember over 400 such words! Even SOWPODS only has 121 of them. >>

Not at all, but I did once note that someone else collected 222 Twos from various dictionaries and published them; the compiler explicitly eschewed CH as being ridiculous, and I wasn't then aware that PH was at issue to check on how he handled that.

Every argument about SOWPODS providing a more open and hence better game would seem to apply to this list of 222 Twos, or for that matter SOWPODS + the Hungarian dictionary.

It seems everyone agrees that OSW has a lot more of the words that a reasonably well-read person wouldn't know than OSPD. But the real question is how a reasonable person regards the unfamiliar words. As I've noted on several occasions, most wordgame enthusiasts are delighted to learn new words, so long as they are correctly spelled, etc. A lot of the SOWPODS words unique to OSW and some of the ones unique to OSPD just don't meet that criterion; they delight no one as words, to the great detriment of the game, even if they do please a tiny percentage of the world's wordgame lovers as "game pieces".

Dan