General information

INFO: A word to play is in CAPITALS. Letters already on the board are shown as the S here: WORM(S). Premium Score squares: DL = Double letter: TL = Triple letter: DW = Double Word: TW = Triple Word. The blanks have no score letter on the Top right! A bingo (using all 7 of your letters) gets +35.
Useful word lists are in the first post "ALL MY TIPS. This is the post to read first" and on some other posts. I welcome comments and suggestions.
Had a great play, score or a move you think should have been allowed? Take a screen shot and post it somewhere (Picasa?). Send me the link.

Monday, February 28, 2011

Dictionaries and acceptable words.


One of the most controversial debates on Words with Friends discussion boards is why certain words are not accepted. Very few are the comments about words that are accepted like c…t (I can’t even get myself to write it!)

Firstly there is a huge difference in the number of words in the Scrabble dictionary SOWPODS (268,000+) and the Words with Friends dictionary ENABLE (173,000+). In fact, the Words with Friends Company only use ENABLE as a base for their own version and they may have taken out certain “Non-family” words but left several ones in.

The 100,000 words omitted from ENABLE are probably mostly words that the average player will never use and I have never tried to “compute” them. Maybe someone can and report back here.

However, some examples beg the question “Why?”

I recently had the word LETCHER on the board. LETCHER is in fact only a place name so should not be acceptable in either dictionary but was! First, an S was added at the end and then I wanted to add an F at the beginning. A FLETCHER is an arrow maker and is OK in SPOWPODS but not in ENABLE.

There are two good reasons why Words with Friends chose ENABLE. Firstly, it would not cause copyright problems and secondly, it is smaller, which in an APP is important.

Words with Friends then decided, and I agree, to be family-friendly. They took out some words that might offend but strangely left in words that I really do not want to write.

I have seen comments on the various discussion boards about many words that have two or more meanings, one of which is considered derogatory and is not allowed.

Let’s create a list of such words. Do give the source for the acceptable version and a short explanation.

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