This half SOWPODS is basically full SOWPODS for those who aren't that inclined to study much anyway. Just go whole hog, and let everyone study as much as they want -- just like we do it with OSPD. Adding a 3rd lexicon to the international schism is a step in the wrong direction. Other than that, I defer to Mr. Felt's letters.

On Fri, 18 Jun 1999, Daniel Goldman wrote:

 Proposal: The dictionary committee should take a good, hard look at all the
 OSW only words and compile a list of, say, the three to five thousand that
 are the most real/reasonable. We would then incorporate these OSW words
 into the next edition of OWL.
 
 As I see it, this proposal has several advantages. It makes our dictionary
 more similar to Britain's, thus making international play easier and
 allowing experts to play both OSPD and SOWPODS without having to worry as
 much about getting confused between the two dictionaries. It would make the
 game slightly more open and high scoring, without severely reducing the
 value of good defense. It would quiet the anti-SOWPODS purists who think
 that many OSW-only words are letter combinations with no meaning (these
 "letter combinations" would not be included on the list). It would also
 quiet the pro-SOWPODSers who assert that many OSW-only words are actually
 words. It would allow people to get a a sense of the effects of a switch
 SOWPODS might be like without having to deal with thirty thousand new
 words. While some anti-SOWPODSers might invoke the slippery-slope argument
 against this proposal (i.e, this is just the first step towards SOWPODS for
 all), they should also realize that their argument against adopting the
 rest of the words will be stronger (i.e, none of them are really words). I
 think this proposal has many of the advantages of the mini-pods suggestion,
 but it is more "natural."
 
 Comments, anyone?

Last Modified 9/22/00

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