It would be nice if:

1. The rules for GWG made it clearer what word list is used

2. The specified list did not include archaic Scots dialect

3. The specified word list was not a hard-to-find alternative version of a commonly-used list

4. This site gave a link to where the specified list can actually be found

I guess it would be wrong to deal with 3 as that would involve changing the rules of the game. But the other three points could be fixed by making a copy of the list available somewhere and giving a clear link to it.

Regarding point 2: the list includes really weird words from all kinds of backgrounds and languages, e.g. words derived from Dutch like 'aasvogel' and 'waterzooi' where I can't even guess how they entered the English language. I don't think cleaning it up would add much to the game.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary knows both words, so they aren't that strange. Here's their entry on waterzooi:

Main Entry: wa·ter·zooi

Pronunciation: 'vä-t&r-“zoi

Function: noun

Etymology: Flemish, from water water + zooi quantity of cooked food: a stew of fish or chicken and vegetables in a seasoned stock thickened with cream and egg yolks

Their entry on aasvogel is only available for subscribers.

I think the version of the ENABLE list used here is the one you can find at http://personal.riverusers.com/~thegrendel/software.html under the name “Updated millennial edition of ENABLE”. It has 173,528 words, and does not include any one-letter words. If you add all 26 one-letter strings (which are accepted for GWG) you get 173,554 “words”.