Accepted Words in TWL

[ling]

As many of you know, I've been playing a lot of Scrabulous. Some days I'm really good at it, some days, I'm horrendous. But even on those days, I know what words are real words and what words aren't!

When I play Scrabulous, I always pick the TWL dictionary. It's the official United States Scrabble dictionary. Canada uses it too, but they do a lot of things like us. SOWPODS is the one international players use. But since the default is the TWL dictionary, I never bothered to change it.

I usually set the game for non-challenge mode because what's the point of a challenge game when it's a) at your own pace and b) over the internet? So the game just won't let accept words that aren't in the dictionary. I've accepted the fact that it didn't take Zen as I'd tried to make it once. But the other day, I tried to make Chinese, and the dictionary totally didn't accept that! So I wondered if any of the other nationalities weren't' accepted either. I tried English and French, both of which were acceptable words. So I tried Japanese and Korean. No deal! It wouldn't take Spanish either, but it would take German.

Who comes up with these rules?

It's just too bizarre. Do you know the answer?

Technorati : dictionary twl, scrabble, scrabulous

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_stranger_here/]

The TWL dictionary won't accept proper nouns, but some of those words have meanings distinct from their capitalized/country meanings. The word english, for example, can mean the spin you put on a ball when playing pool, and german has to do with a genetic relationship.

I guess "Zen" when used correctly is always a proper noun referring to a specific school of thought, but it's passed into such common use that it seems like it ought to make the cut. The TWL dictionary is a stickler for propriety, though.

[gregvaneekhout.livejournal.com]

IT SHOULD TAKE ZEN!!!! AAARRRRGH!!!!

(I'm not being very zen about this.)

[frabjouslinz.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way. Dang it.