The English language is constantly evolving, and as such, defining what counts as a word is like shooting a moving target. Unfortunately, it is also a requirement for Beat Me At Boggle.
The first version of BM@B used the Scrabble dictionary. If you've ever played a game of Scrabble with me, you will know that there are issues with the Scrabble dictionary. My friend Ria hates playing against me because I will -- without shame -- play QIS, QAT, ZA, OE, and ZETAS. The Scrabble dictionary is just a bit too liberal with what it counts as word. I found that people would just try random plausible combinations of letters, and more often than not, the generous Scrabble dictionary would count it.
To remedy this, I found an alternate dictionary. The 12dicts international word game list is a dictionary specifically formulated for word games. It's quite a good list, but it suffers from being a bit too conservative with what it counts as a word. HIREE, CHINO, DURIAN, OLOGIES, LIGHTBULB are nowhere to be found. Hardly words that you say everyday, but I think you'd be dissappointed if you tried one of these words and it was rejected.
My solution has been to use the conservative 12dicts list for short words, and a liberal list for longer words. The longer list is comprised of words that in the 12dicts list, or they are in both Spread the Word List AND the Scrabble dictionary. Spread the Word List is designed for crossword construction so contains brand names or entire phrases.
The table below breaks down the logic.
| Length | Include If | For nerds |
| < 5 | In 12dicts | word ∈ 12dicts |
| ≥ 5 | In 12dicts, or in Scrabble dictionary AND Spread The Word List | word ∈ 12dicts ∨ (word ∈ Scrabble ∧ word ∈ STWL) |