Readme Notes for Supplementary Wordlists
    for Basic English General area and Specialty wordlists
    and customizations -- January 15, 2006

    Files included:
      readmespec.txt  7KB   (this note)
      business.dic       4KB
      science.dic         5KB
        biology.dic -       2KB
        geology.dic -       3KB
        mathmech.dict -   2KB
        physchem.txt -   2KB
      versbibl.txt         7KB
        verse.dic -   4KB
        bible.dic -   2KB
      socialsci.dic       1KB
      subseq350.dic     8KB
      en_BE2.aff     2KB   (same as en_US.aff)
    Purpose:
        Every learner of Basic English is expected to know the 850 words, the international words, and how to use derivatives and complex words, plus one area of General interest with 100 words, such as Science, Business, or Verse; and one Specialty detail within that general topic of 50 words such as Biology, Economics, or Bible.

    Business - 84 root words.
        In the area of Business, two Specialty lists are provided, each is fifty words, one for commerce (trade) and one for economics, but not one for general Business. Together they should provide the learner with one hundred general business words, but the lists overlap 16 words, so that the combined list is only 84 words, which is even less to learn.
        We can assume that the overlapping 16 words will eventually form the start of a general business list and that other specific areas will be created -- banking, insurance, investments, . . . what about personnel, inventory, quality, manufacturing? -- from which other general business words will be revealed.
        The sixteen words that overlap are :
      asset , average , bill , broker , cost , guarantee ,
      investment , liability , loan , partner , purchase ,
      retail , sale , strike , supply , wholesale .
    Commerce - 105 root words-- Business with the addition of 21 replacement words for trade mentioned in "Basic for Business".
      canal, capital , carton, case, cash, consul, dock, duty, factor, minus, percent, premium, propaganda, plus, royalty, sold, slump, sold, stand, wagon, warrant.

    Science.   100 root words - common to the sciences.
      International   13 words of science in common use -- anesthetic, bomb, electricity, magnetic, microscope, neutron, organism, petroleum, serum, thermometer, tropism, turbine, vitamin.
      Biology.   50 words
      Geology.   50 words
      Mathematics & Mechanics.   50 words
      Physics-Chemistry.   50 words

    Verse - Bible .   150 root words -- 100 Verse, 50 Bible
        Because Bible is the only detail topic under the general area of Verse, they will be used together (until additional topics are created). This list was originally provided by Todd Mountjoy and updated a little. Verse-Bible was later expanded for use with an affix file.
        Does a topic of "Literature" with specialty details for Verse, Bible, (Romance, Mystery, theater, media) and Grammar, etc. make any sense?

    Social Science .   22 root words -- 14 General , 3 Economics , 5 Political Science
        You will remember that Florence has added social senses to existing Basic English words. Only 22 of the 100 social science words are new. There are no true sub-lists. Therefore we make recommend that the 50 words from Business-Economics be added, taken from file business.txt . In fact, the other 34 words in that file for business-commerce have some social relevance, so that that whole file might be added and save you some effort. Our logic is that business-economics is appropriate and that commerce has social relevance. Even adding these 84 words to the 22 Social Science words is still far short of the 150 words normally expected of a supplemental area of interest.
    The 50 words for business-economics are
        accident, arbitration, asset, average, bill, broker, budget, circulation, combine, consumer, conversion, correlation, cost, deflation, demand, deposit, discount, efficiency, effort, employer, experiment, factor, fatigue, guarantee, habit, index, inflation, investment, liability, loan, margin, monopoly, partner, pension, plan, population, purchase, rent, retail, sale, saving, security, service, share, speculation, statistics, stimulus, strike, supply, wholesale.
    The 34 words for business-commerce are :
        accident, arbitration, budget, circulation, combine, consumer, conversion, correlation, deflation, demand, deposit, discount, efficiency, effort, employer, experiment, factor, fatigue, habit, index, inflation, margin, monopoly, pension, plan, population, rent, saving, security, service, share, speculation, statistics, stimulus

    Subsequent Words (next words after basic Basic) .   350 root words
        Although not part of Basic, the same techniques were used to determine the next words to be learned by the learner going forward to full English. This file seems a good place to put this Subsequent 350 wordlist for use with Simple English applications.
    The ".dic" suffix indicates that suffixes and compound words have been applied.

    To Use:
    Using OpenOffice.org Writer, open en_BE.dic.
    Copy one or more the specialty wordlist(s) into en_BE.dic.
    While the file is open
      Add your name, town, street, etc., one word per line.
      Add a code word to confirm which wordlist is active : aachemistry, etc..
      Simple English users :
        add VOASE and Freq 1000 words in the same way.
        This will be even more useful if you know how to add affix codes.
        Delete duplicates.
      Change the word count in the first line to the combined number.
      Sort alphabetically.
      Save as en_BE2.dic   or en_Simple.dic   or en_anyname.dic
    That's all.
    You are ready to continue on to creating another language in the "dictionary.lst" file.
    It may have a path something like this :
      C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 2.0\share\dict\ooo\dictionary.lst
    Add this line :
      DICT en JM en_BE2.dic
    English (Jamaican) will now be recognized as a language with spell checking capabilities. Configure the OOo text processor to recognize the language "English ( Jamaica)" as default or "For the current document only."
    Exit OOo Quickstart and re-start OOo.

    To Undo: There are no registry entries. Simply delete or don't use any features that are no longer wanted.

    Details:
        The number at the top is the word count. This saves the system from having to do two passes thru the file. Therefore when you add your name, town, etc. to the list, you will want to increase the word count.

    Affix file.
        Spell checking software often makes use of "affix" files and an algorithm to add prefix and suffix forms to the root word. The OpenOffice.org affix file currently has 22 affixes defined. Ogden's Basic English makes use of only some of these.
        Affix files have some idiosyncrasies; for example, re- is one of seven prefix options and is coded as option A. The word "read" is coded as ad/A. This can get confusing. The Institute will eventually provide several versions for users levels of spell checking needs. The Basic 1500 level seems to have some demand.
        The affix file, en_US.aff can be left alone. The OOo original will accept a few -ion , -ment, and other suffixes that are not allowed in Basic English.
        Alternatively, you can use the Basic English version, en_BE.aff, which is a more restrictive. You can select either in the dictionary.lst file or make your own after reading how to make affixes.
       
    Notes about OOo.
        Download OpenOffice.org, its freeware, or order it as a CD from one of their partners. We paid $5.50 for a copy.
        Somebody owns the word "OpenOffice" so the software must be called OpenOffice.org. Wonder what he story there is?
        OOo calls spell-checking word lists -- a dictionary.
        They call a translation chart -- a thesaurus or synonym list.
        An OOo dictionary, .dic, file is a simple text file saved as with OpenOffice Writer as text, but with the name-end of .doc . A "techy type" might chose to save as "text encoded", with LF, without CR. (It saves one carriage return per word, which is a lot.) Saving as a regular text file will work fine and is easier to work with for additions and changes.
        OpenOffice QuickStart must be "off" only once, to recognize new dictionaries or affix files. QuickStart will save loading time after this first time.

    About this Page: readspec.html -- discussion of specialty wordlists for spell checking for OpenOffice.org.
    Last updated : January 15, 2005. Major rewrite. Add subsequent 350.
    URL:   http://www.basic-english.org/down/readspec.html