Wordtwist Dictionary Update

[admin]

Hi everyone -

We just this morning (Friday, November 18th) released the 2022 Wordtwist Dictionary Update for all 4x4 and 5x5 game boards. This update added more than 100,000 new words to our dictionary and should fix the vast majority of "blind spots" we've had reported in the past. As an example, here is a list of words that have been reported as "missing" in our previous dictionary over the past several years - all but 5 of them are now included in the 2022 dictionary:

wordtwist_new_dictionary.png

Archaic/dialectical/slang words have been left out of the dictionary update, as have instances of vulgarity, offensive ethnic slurs, etc. which would have been inappropriate for general audiences. Other than that we cast a very wide net in terms of what was allowed into this new update. We also invested in a new, highly cross-referenced dictionary database that allowed us to double-check that if any one form of a word was already in our database, then ALL proper forms of that word would now be added. (For example, we had COUNTEROBJECTING before, and have now added COUNTEROBJECT, COUNTEROBJECTS, COUNTEROBJECTED, etc.)

The total size of our dictionary has increased by roughly 25%, and on average each individual game board has increased its total word count by between 5% and 14%. As the vast majority of new words added are rare, unusual and/or highly specialized, I doubt this will have much of an effect on everyday game play, but my hope is that you should no longer come across frequent instances of valid words not being accepted by our dictionary. It will certainly still happen from time to time - no dictionary is perfect - but my hope is that this update should make that a much more rare occurrence.

If you find any problems post-update please post them here and I will look into them ASAP.

Stephen

[Naboka]

How will this affect best and longest words on games previously/currently in play?

There will be games where a player has gotten the longest or best word--and also tried a word that was previously not accepted that would now be the longest/best word.

Seems a bit unjust if their records are expunged.

Not to mention high scores and most words.

[admin]

All archived records remain unchangeable. Any records on currently live boards can be beaten using new words. But the majority of boards did not have their longest words changed by this dictionary update, so I don't anticipate any great loss of records. But, yes, it is possible that some records will be lost - just as it is equally possible for you to break other people's existing records by finding new words that weren't playable before.

The other option was to archive ALL boards before the update to ensure no records would change. I considered that, but it would result in the entire puzzle library having ZERO solving stats, and when we've done that in the past the uproar over that was much greater than the complaints about a few lost records, since the game over pages would all be quite boring and have no solving statistics for several weeks until the entire library had been played through several times each from scratch.

[Naboka]

Some of the words that have been in play seem to be archaic/dialectical.

Such as saith, saist.

Have any words been eliminated from play with the new dictionary?

[admin]

I made a point not to remove any words from the previous dictionary, with the exception of less than a dozen strong vulgarities and ethnic/racial slurs which slipped by the original checks and should never have been in the game dictionary to begin with. So you may find a tiny number of inappropriate terms will no longer be recognized/scored which previously were - the two most common ones you may notice have gone missing being c**t and t**t simply because they are short and contain relatively common letters. Various racial slurs such as n***o, d**o and g**k have been similarly removed. Other removals are either variations on those terms or are much longer and either rarely or never showed up in gameplay before.

I apologize that these terms were ever allowed in the first place.

[bwt1213]

I haven't been seeing n***o around much any more, but I never thought it was ever a racial slur. I remember it in textbooks when I was in school and was told to use it because the term "n****r" was never anything but a slur. I have utterly no idea what d**o is, and any letters I fill in don't make sense, so maybe I'm insulated from some parts of society. And removing g**k is probably a mistake. Yes, it can be an ethnic slur. It's also a perfectly valid word meaning "wet refuse or waste that is usually odious and offensive" and might refer to rancid cooking oil that has accumulated in a grease trap or sink drain or broken-down engine oil found in an oilpan.

[Naboka]

So far, so good.

Don't think berlinite was accepted before. It was frustrating knowing lots of chemical, medical, scientific terms that weren't accepted.

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[admin]

BERLINITE is indeed a newly-added word. Nice find!

For anyone interested here's how the newly-added words break down by length:

by length.png

... and then roughly about 500 more newly-added words are 21 letters or longer. Total new words is just under 125,000.

[Naboka]

Not really knowing how boards are made,

one might guess that the sudden influx of new words would present opportunities for constructing lots of new boards.

You know...

give a mouse a cookie...

and all that.

[admin]

New boards are already in the works. Expect an announcement on that in the next two weeks.

[crazykate]

And removing g**k is probably a mistake. Yes, it can be an ethnic slur. It's also a perfectly valid word meaning "wet refuse or waste that is usually odious and offensive" and might refer to rancid cooking oil that has accumulated in a grease trap or sink drain or broken-down engine oil found in an oilpan.

I was wondering which word they means by g**k, as I've never heard a word involving those letters used as a racial slur. I thought "wait, geek isn't a racial slur though?" The definition you gave seems to fit the word "gunk", which I have also never heard used as a racial slur, but I learned British English as a second language, so I might be missing some cultural context. For the sake of education, where is it used as a slur, and what would be the intended meaning of the word if used as a slur?

[admin]

It's probably more of an American English term, dating from the 1960s and popularized during the Vietnamese war, but still widely used as an anti-Asian slur today. Middle letters are O-O.

[crazykate]

It's probably more of an American English term, dating from the 1960s and popularized during the Vietnamese war, but still widely used as an anti-Asian slur today. Middle letters are O-O.

Thanks for explaining! I was worrying that I might end up inadvertently using an offensive term that I didn't know about.

[bwt1213]

It's probably more of an American English term, dating from the 1960s and popularized during the Vietnamese war, but still widely used as an anti-Asian slur today. Middle letters are O-O.

Actually, it began during the Korean war. The Korean word for "American" is "migook", and for "Korea" is "Hanguk". The slang usage began almost immediately and at least at first was relatively innocent. It became more derogatory later, and by the time of Vietnam it was only used in a derogative way to refer to anyone Asian. And yes, "gunk" is another term for the stuff in grease traps and oilpans. But I've heard the other term used even more commonly for the same thing. When I was a kid, I heard it all the time used to refer to swamp mud -- the black, smelly, sticky stuff no one wanted any part of. Perhaps the derogatory meaning has completely taken over while I wasn't watching.

[Naboka]

Dear Admin,

I...

hesitate...

recognizing the augean task of putting the expanded dictionary in play...

all those long, thankless hours...

with the wolves howling at the door...

blizzards burying the firewood.

I hesitate to note that..."augean" does not seem to play.

And, dare I ask, did various taxonomic catagories also miss the Ark as it sallied forth into the storm?

There were so many, many taxonomic groupings left on the shore last time. So many games played, tears falling, remembering forgotten taxonomic families and sub families
drowned in the oblivious cat 5 storm sweeping coastal Wordtwist.

But...

least you think this unappreciative...

every letter was marinated in gratitude before being gently placed in this pan for searing and roasting.

ps: having aspired at 12 to herpetology, discovering "atroxase" now plays when once it did not...

priceless.

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