Wikipedia talk:VOA Special English Word Book

How many words

How many words are in this list? --Masoris 23:02, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Would like to know also. SunCreator (talk) 23:36, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

There web site is available from the linked article, and there they say "all words" is 1468. Here we have 1580. Cpiral (talk) 04:30, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Protect this page

Hello! I just arrived, and while checking basic policies for SE (Simple English) writing, I think this page should at least be partially protected against accidental editing, like Basic English wordlists, since it is a basic reference. Lwyx 01:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

No one really has vandalized the page before, and if anyone does add information that is inaccurate, other users will be here to quickly revert it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nishkid64 (talk • contribs) 19 January 2007 (UTC)

IPA

I think that is a good idea add the pronounce of each word, using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), so the people that do not know how to pronounce some word can learn it.

--Thiago "Skapatata" Machado, 200.17.212.117 15:33, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

"Word Book" vs. "Word List"

Why is this article called "Word Book?" The article should explain why. The more intuitive title would be "Word List", particularly in this age of websites. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 03:53, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

It used to be the name of the web site, but now that's a dead link. Check their web site to see what if the term is still in use. If not, change it. Cpiral (talk) 04:30, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Attribution

There was an unusual remark about attribution if the list was shared. The GNU Free Documentation License on this page is the same for all pages. It's at the bottom (even on the printable page.) So I removed it.

I also removed two links that went to non-existent pages on their web site. The web site is given on the VOA page that we link to.

I also changed section headings and the ordering of the items in the intro, as explained in the edit summaries on the page history. Cpiral (talk) 04:30, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Red links redirected to Wiktionary

I also redirected 448 red links to Wiktionary. How did I do that? Well, after typing in the red link words from A to Z (and beyond) into a file of its own, I then used xargs to make a sed command file. Then I applied that command file to the original that I'd pasted onto my local computer file. Then I pasted back the replacement text. GNU free software makes text processing quite possible. Cpiral (talk) 04:30, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

(I've split this last paragraph into a new thread. Hope that's ok.) Quiddity (talk) 23:02, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Proper idea, Quiddity. Cpiral (talk) 00:59, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Does this "automated" linking technique know if the word is actually on Wiktionary, as the link will still show up as blue even if the word has not been created.--Peterdownunder (talk) 23:02, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Just for ease of viewing, this is the page prior to update, with many redlinks. I see that there were already dozens of links to Wiktionary back then, which seems sensible. - It also matches how BE 850 works. - However BE 1500 still has dozens of redlinks (of which some are potential article titles).

I would hesitantly suggest that the items linked to Wiktionary might be visually marked (eg. with an * (asterisk)), mainly because the interwiki-blue is so similar to the intrawiki-blue, but I'm not sure how many people that would help, nor how to do it without making the page "visually cluttered" (which asterisks would probably do..).

Just a thought. I'm not a regular Simple editor, so am unaware of background/historical discussions around these ideas/pages. Quiddity (talk) 22:43, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the links are almost impossible to tell apart, but is it really a problem? What would be the advantage of knowing if a word was linked to Wiktionary? --Peterdownunder (talk) 22:57, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the traditions are, here, regarding separation of 'pedia from dictionary. I know there's a mountain of varied-opinion at En: regarding when and whether we're meant/encouraged/allowed to do so. I also grok that this page is in project-namespace, and therefore subject to differently-nuanced expectations than a regular "article". I suppose my thinking was along the lines of "is this a word list for checking whether all articles that should exist, do exist? Or, more of a reference for what words to 'prefer' when writing articles? Is it intended purely for editors, or partially for readers too?" Similar to the discussions about the WP:VITAL articles. Managing expectations.

Eg. at BE 1500 the entry footman is a redlink, and I assume we all agree it would be bad to make it blue - by linking it to wiktionary - simply to eliminate the red.

I don't have time/inclination/background-in-local-knowledge to go through the entire list of changes made in this article, and I'm happy to assume good faith, but I did want to tentatively raise the issue of "automated conversion of redlinks into wiktionary links might be harmful if done without lots of manual checking and thinking". I'm a worrier, by habit!

Hopefully that makes sense. :) Quiddity (talk) 00:32, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I believe the page is a resource for both editors and readers. I do not think it is a list of articles we should have, as in many cases the words are not suitable for an encyclopaedia article. I worry about automatic linking as well. --Peterdownunder (talk) 04:35, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Number of Science Words?

The introductory paragraph claims 32, but the list has only 31.

New version?

https://docs.voanews.eu/en-US-LEARN/2022/06/07/c4dbd6af-5f63-4f28-bc42-0bd175f4e4b4.pdf (linked from https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/voa-word-book/6607229.html ) lists two more prefixes, one more common expression, and probably more words -- should this page also add them? Aliza250 (talk) 04:54, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

As it seems to be the official VOA list, I see no reason not to follow it for this page. VOA shifted to VOA Learning English (from Special English) back in 2014 with this list being published in 2018. I do thing it would be better to use this though as its from the actual VoA site directly and not a similar archived version. the question here is whether the 2018 version is official if the VOA site is still hosting the 2009 list. Ideal would be a copy of the 2018 list hosted by the VoA site itself and not an archive of it. Odd that they are hosting the old list and the new list is only sitting in an archive. Pure Evil (talk) 20:37, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

@Pure Evil What's wrong with this link: https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/voa-word-book/6607229.html ? It's a 2018 list; it's not an archive. Lights and freedom (talk) 20:52, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

How many words that are common but missing?

I have found out that "is" and "are" are missing from this article. 2405:3800:8A0:E933:9B89:C6E7:6F77:E817 (talk) 13:02, 8 August 2023 (UTC)