Skip to main content

Master List

Since 2007, I've been working on my Master Word List, something every professional crossword writer needs. The fact that it still isn't done shows that I obviously don't work on it regularly! It's a bit of a tedious task, to be honest.


Crossword words are an unusual subset — plurals, superlative forms (-ier -est) and verb & adverb forms (-ing -ly etc) are best avoided, there should no offensive or swear words, no gory, medical or highly technical terms, no sexual terms or slang, no really depressing words (coffin, cadaver, suicide etc), and no American spellings (for Aussie crosswords anyway).

So I'm removing as many words as I'm putting in. I'm adding things like well known Australian slang, place names from around the world, foody terms, very short phrases, and names of well known people. My word list helps give the crosswords I write "my style", so it's a vital part of my professional 'tool kit'.

The 'raw' word list that my husband found and is the base of my crossword software has about 58,000 words. It is from an American university, so there are a lot of the above words in it, especially technical scientific terms, disease names, and American spelling, of course. 

It also has lots of variant forms of words, and plenty of words that I just don't want to write clues for, and wouldn't be that fun to find in a crossword either. For example :
  • prepare
  • prepared
  • prepares
  • preparing
  • prepended
  • prepending
  • preponderance
  • preponderant
  • preponderate
  • preposition
  • prepositional
  • prepositions
  • preposterous
  • preposterously
  • preprinted
  • preprocessed
  • preprocessing
  • preprocessor
  • preprogrammed
  • prepunched
Out of these, I'll probably only leave the ones in red, roughly a third.

So I'm going through the list word-by-word, checking it against the Australian Oxford Dictionary (AOD). Yeah, I'm reading the whole dictionary. Pity my memory isn't good enough to remember every word!


At the moment I'm up to EXCRETION, on page 453 of the Australian Oxford Dictionary. Only 1,116 pages to go  >.<


It really would be a good idea for me to commit at least one hour a week to work on the list, otherwise it'll never get done! 
Labels:

Comments

  1. 2pawFriday, October 28, 2011

    Word building, as I called this task in my Spelling list, is great. Of course not a bazillion pages worth, but I love your list!! It will be an invaluable resource.

    ReplyDelete
  2. greenspaceSunday, November 06, 2011

    I hope you get past Excretion soon :-P
    didn't know there was such a thing as an Australian Oxford Dictionary - sounds noice :-)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

American vs British crosswords

American and British crosswords. Is there a difference? The short answer is HELL YES! Now for the long answer ... There are major differences between American-style and British-style crosswords (which are seen in Commonwealth countries too).  Crosswords were started by Arthur Wynne in 1913, a British man who lived in America, so both countries claim a close connection with the development of this popular puzzle. They developed in slightly different directions in each country, which has led to the varieties we see today. American-style crosswords are almost exclusively published in America, while British-style crosswords have spread through the Commonwealth — Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, and other English-speaking nations tend to prefer this variety of the puzzle, as well as the United Kingdom, of course. A quick look at these grids will show you the most obvious difference between the two varieties : British-style Not...
5 comments
Read more

Lesson 2: Anagrams

One thing it's important to do with cryptic clues is to ignore the surface reading! The surface is the sense you get when reading a clue for the first time, the mental image it brings up. Apart from some very rare clue types, this is only going to lead you astray. What's vitally important to do is to read each clue, word by word, looking for the hidden meaning. Also, there are a few important things to note with the definition part of clues. Firstly — they will always be at the start or the end of the clue, but never in the middle (ie with bits of wordplay around them). Secondly — pinning down the definition is a major part of getting success in solving cryptic clues. And of course, once you've figured out which part is the definition, the remainder of the clue has to be the wordplay! ANAGRAMS So, on to the first of the cryptic devices that you'll find in every cryptic crossword: Anagrams! Anagrams are a very popular cryptic device, and e...
3 comments
Read more

The Rude Clues

When my Cryptic Crosswords For Dummies book was being checked by the American editors at Wiley, they decided that my handful of risqué clues couldn't stay in. So I edited the offending 11 clues to tame them down. But it's a pity to see such naughtiness go to waste. So I thought you'd like to have a try of them here! I've put the puzzle reference in, too, so you can find the edited versions in the book (which should be available in bookshops in a few weeks now). As ever, my chihuahuas Petal and Griff are the Guardians of the Answers. Have a good try of the clues yourself, and scroll below the pups to see full explanations of the clues, and the answers. The (Slightly) Rude Clues 1. Rampantly sexy, without a kiss? Absolutely! (3) Crossword 5, 21 Down, pg 36 2.  Mesmerist has weird phony tits  (9) Crossword 15, 1 Across, pg 56 3.  Naughty escort's laced undergarment  (6)  Crossword 24, 24 Across, pg 74 4.  101 in advertisement for tar...
10 comments
Read more