Copyright (C) 1994 by Joseph M. Woodbury
List of words starting with "A" Copyright (C) 1994 by Joseph M. Woodbury

The word list may be distributed freely as long as it is accompanied by
this file.

This list was composed by:

   Joseph M. Woodbury
   1026 East 120 South
   Spanish Fork, UT 84660

Price lists, release schedule and ordering information follows at end of
article.

***************************************************************************
NOTE  NOTE  NOTE  NOTE  NOTE  NOTE  NOTE  NOTE  NOTE  NOTE  NOTE  NOTE
***************************************************************************
I am NOT a professional lexicographer. Do NOT send me any questions on the
meanings of words or whether such-and-such word exists.  Instead, go to
your local public library and crack the dictionary.
***************************************************************************


This file is the first of twenty-four (x, y and z have been collapsed into
a single file) which will make up a rather unique word list. I initially
started work on it to support some word games I was writing. So far, I have
gathered far more words than I originally expected and found that I am
creating the most complete word list that I know of.

The letter A took an absurdly long time to complete--much more time than I
expected. I now have 12861 words that start with 'A'. It has taken me
between 40 and 50 hours of work scattered throughout the last several
weeks (which makes it difficult to calculate exactly how long it has
taken.) Currently I have a total of 97,960 words of which at least 25% will
eventually be eliminated (the rules for what words I keep and throw away
are listed below). I expect to double the size of what is left. This is
partly due to finding new words, but mostly to fleshing out the current
words with the proper tenses, pluralizations and suffixes.

To illustrate, the word "allow" can be expanded to the following forms:
allowabilities, allowability, allowable, allowableness, allowablenesses,
allowably, allowance, allowanced, allowances, allowancing, allowed,
allowedly and allowing. (Note that most spell checkers will fail
at least half of these words, though they won't agree on all the failures.)

In addition, some suffixes and prefixes can technically be applied to all,
or most, nouns, verbs, adjectives etc. For example, the suffix -like can
technically be added to any noun. The reality is, however, that a
relatively small percentage of nouns with -like suffixes are used in common
english.

The result is that I must decide the status of every individual word. To do
this I have constructed a set of rules. Rule 1, by default, covers rules
2-6, but I felt them important enough to state separately. The brief list
is followed by detailed explanations of the items.

1) Words must be formed using only [lower case] a-z
2) No uppercased words
3) No apostrophes
4) No hyphenated words
5) No compound "words"
6) No abbreviations or acronyms
7) No slang (especially vulgar slang)
8) No British (or Australian) slang or spelling
9) No foreign words unless they have obtained common english usage
10) No obsolete or archaic words

Detailed explanations:


1) Words must be formed using only [lower case] a-z
   This follows the conventions of most word games, including my own. The
   introduction of any extraneous characters makes word creation based on
   existing words (those on the playing board) magnitudes more difficult.
   This also simplifies compression algorithms.

2) No uppercased words
   This includes, but is not exclusive to; proper names, titles of people
   and publications, days, months, holidays and trademarks. Taxonomic
   names used in botany and zoology above genre are capitalized and are
   ineligible. However, adjectives and nouns derived from these are
   allowed, though many have been overlooked.

   Dictionaries will use the notations of; cap and often cap. Words with
   the "cap" notation are never used. Words with the "often cap" notation
   are generally not used unless I feel that lower-case version of the word
   is the most common. For example, I eliminated the word "Antifederalist"
   because I felt that the capitalized version was the more common and
   correct (it is often hyphenated and spelled "Anti-Federalist".)

3) No apostrophes
   This includes possessives and contractions. Contractions could be added
   later with relative ease especially since there aren't a whole lot of
   them. There are as many possessives, on the other hand, as there are
   nouns. In almost every case (there may be exceptions that I can't think
   of at this moment) the root of a possessive is a noun with "'s" added or,
   in the case of plural nouns, a simple apostrophe. (Examples: The
   girl's baseball. The birds' cornfield.)

   To facilitate such things, I have considered adding a "part of speech"
   bitmask to every word. The word "fly" would be declared as a noun and
   a verb. This would require a lot of time and eyedrops.

4) No hyphenated words
   This was chiefly done for word game reasons. However, there are some
   words which are hyphenated by some lexicographers and not by others. In
   such cases, I usually went with the majority.

5) No compound "words"
   These are "words" which are formed from two distinct words WITH a space
   between them. Many times the separate words are, by themselves,
   completely valid (i.e. "affirmative action"), however there are "words"
   which cannot be split to make two english words (i.e. "ad infinitum".)

6) No abbreviations or acronyms
   These usually require periods and/or capitalization. Worse, it could
   create a nearly endless list of words. I have considered construction
   separate lists for abbreviations and acronyms. Such a list would have
   two entries--the abbreviation, or acronym, and the word(s) for which it
   stands. This would allow the optional expansion of abbreviations.

7) No slang (especially vulgar slang)
   Fairly self explanatory. These words are usually annotated as such in
   dictionaries (if they are present at all.) On occasion, however, I chose
   to include some slang which I felt was in common usage or which was
   important and, periodically, so peculiar that I couldn't help it. For
   example, I have included bogus and abigail (a lady's maid).

8) No British (or Australian) slang or spelling
   There is quite a list of non-American slang which makes absolutely no
   sense to Americans. It is important to remember, however, that some of
   these words have American English definitions or are acceptable in
   American English. On occasion I have decided to include such a word,
   though all the dictionaries stated that it was foreign slang.

   The spelling issue was a bit more complicated. The word "license" is
   spelled "licence" in England (which is why the James Bond movie,
   "Licence to Kill" was spelled the way it was.) I have chosen to go with
   the American spelling UNLESS the British spelling is acceptable in the
   United States.

   Some times the issue isn't very clear. A good example of this is
   "anesthesiology" which is also spelled "anaesthesiology". Americans
   prefer the first spelling while Brits prefer the second, though both are
   absolutely correct. I have chosen, in this case, to include both.

9) No foreign words unless they have obtained common english usage
   This includes some words discussed in item 8, but is more concerned with
   non-English languages. A great example of this is "adios" which is
   clearly a Spanish word. It is commonly used in English speech, however
   there is, in my opinion, a tacit understanding that it is still a
   Spanish word simply being used in an English sentence. (I often use it,
   but I speak Spanish.)

   A second example is "joey" which is usually defined as being Australian
   (for baby kangaroo.) However, I believe that it's use is so common here
   in the United States that most Americans wouldn't be able to tell where
   the word came from except by the logic that kangaroos are native to
   Australia.

   A trickier example is "fiesta". This is clearly of Spanish origin and is
   becoming more and more common in English. However, is it common enough
   to be considered part of the English language?

   Last of all, I have included foreign nouns which refer to a very
   specific thing. For example, "sombrero" means "hat" in Spanish, but
   means a broad-rimmed Mexican hat in English. (In other words, if an
   American hears the word "sombrero", they will probably conjure up one
   image while to a Chilean, another picture entirely will probably come to
   mind.)

   In this category, I have given myself a great deal of latitude and I
   don't always follow my own general guidelines. ("Adios" is not listed in
   the "A" list, but "amigo" is.)

10) No obsolete or archaic words
   This are labeled as such in most dictionaries. Archaic words are defined
   as those not in current usage but present in period literature
   (for example, modern writers may use an archaic word for effect).
   Obsolete words are no longer used in the English language though they
   may show up in old literature.

   An example of an archaic word that I kept is "quoth" since that is what
   Poe's raven said and most everyone knows that, however I eliminated
   "quotha".

Rules 1-6 are absolutes and I take care not to violate them. If I did, it
is due to a genuine mistake rather than a deliberate decision on my
part. The rest of the rules are general in nature and require me to make
decisions generally on a case by case basis. However, I may have made
mistakes in including or excluding words.

No one dictionary will define every word in this list. Before sending me
any corrections, I suggest you consult several dictionaries, and not just
the collegiate editions, but the full blown ones.

***************

I project that the entire word list (a-z) will eventually exceed 180,000
words. I am currently about 80% done with B, F, J, K, Q, U, V, W, X, Y and
Z. I am about 25% done with C, D, E, G, H, I, L, M, N, O, P, R, S and T. At
the rate I am working, I should finish the list before November 1994. If,
however, there are interested parties willing to pay part of the fees up
front, I could finish the list as soon as September. The reality is that I
have to make a living in the meantime to support my family.

A physical word list can be copyrighted, however the words in that list
cannot be. As a result, I must be very careful on how this list is
distributed. To protect my work, any sale will have to be on a contractual
basis. In essence, the purchaser will have to agree to certain limitations
on how the list may be used. The less the limitations are, the more
expensive the list will be. The following is a tentative price list, the
exact amounts and legal restrictions will be negotiated prior to purchase.

!!!THESE PRICES ARE OPEN TO NEGOTIATION!!! (However, I will have spent over
1000 eye-weary hours constructing this list by the time I'm done.)

(Note that in all but the first case, the list itself cannot be sold to
third parties in clear text format and may only be distributed compressed
as part of a spell checking software solution.)

All amounts are in US dollars.


Full list with no restrictions................................ $25,000.00
  (This first one will require no contracts, only a check)

Full list to be used and/or distributed in a spell checker.... $10,000.00
Full list to be distributed in a non-decompressable format.... $ 2,500.00
Full list that will not be distributed commercially........... $ 1,000.00
List of all 3, 4 and 5 letter words........................... $   500.00
List of selected 3, 4 and 5 letter words...................... $   100.00

Any interested parties should contact me at:

Joseph M. Woodbury
1026 East 120 South
Spanish Fork, UT 84660

CompuServe ID: 73501,777
America Online: JWoodbury

Any parties interested in contracting me for the word list and/or
interesting in purchasing the complete list may call me at:

(801) 798-0373 between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm Mountain Standard Time.

As a contractor, I would be willing to change this list to suit your needs.
I would be willing to work on an exclusive basis, though I will always
reserve the right to use the list as the basis for a spell checker for my
own products. (For my purposes, however, my spell checker will only give a
boolean response to single words and will not return word lists for the
purposes of creating suggestions or whatever.)

***************************************************************************
NOTE  NOTE  NOTE  NOTE  NOTE  NOTE  NOTE  NOTE  NOTE  NOTE  NOTE  NOTE
***************************************************************************
I am NOT a professional lexicographer. Do NOT send me any questions on the
meanings of words or whether such-and-such word exists.  Instead, go to
your local public library and crack the dictionary.
***************************************************************************
