Hi Tony,

First, kudos on Brow-Raisers.  It's a great book!

Second, I need to correct a fundamental misunderstanding in your "Is
that Really a Word?" piece in The Last Word newsletter.  The words in
the OWL (and OSPD) derive not only from the four source dictionaries
used to update the word list in 2006, but also seven or eight earlier
editions of college dictionaries.  Read the entire page at
http://www.scrabbleplayers.org/w/Dictionary_Committee for more
details.  This may be what Jim Pate was trying to explain in his email
response to your original question.

So there aren't "1,262 that are no longer recognized by *any of the
source dictionaries*" (emphasis mine).  There may be 1,262 words (if
that figure is accurate) that are not in the four dictionaries that
were used to cull new words for the 2006 update, but you can rest
assured that each of those 1,262 is listed in at least one of the
books that was used as a source dictionary at one time.  And since
even the oldest source dictionary dates only from 1968, it seems
unreasonable to argue that those "old" words should be removed from
our list simply because they don't appear in one of the four
dictionaries chosen for the most recent update.

(Incidentally, I suspect college dictionaries will increasingly trim
out more and more words -- not because they are no longer good English
words but simply because the realities of the publishing biz
necessitate keeping page counts to a number that will make the book
profitable; therefore, some of the "older" words have to be removed to
make room for "new" additions.)

Hope that helps clear up your confusion.

Sincerely,
Tim Bottorff