We're delighted that Lacey Echols called our
One-Letter Words: A Dictionary "fool-proof," a "saving grace," "extremely educational, entertaining, and useful." Here's a snippet from the article "My Visit to Grant's Tome" (
Word Ways), in which our dictionary is put to the test:
I wanted to find all one-letter, two-letter, three-letter, etc. words in any given word. There was one problem. Even though I have a fairly large vocabulary, I do not know many words which are one-letter words. Ask me to identify three- and four-letter words, and I am at ease. One letter? The only common single letter words are 'a' and 'I'! However, I was fortunate to hear about a book which could be my saving grace, One-Letter Words: A Dictionary, by Craig Conley. I felt my confidence begin to soar because with the help of this dictionary I should easily be able to count all one-letter words in any given word, or could I? Being a bit of a skeptic, I tested my skill with the word 'ait.' 'I' and 'a' are legitimate, but what about 't'? Sure enough, Mr. Conley provides 58 instances in which 't' is used as a word. As an example, 'it suits you to a T' uses 't' as a word. Hallelujah! But 'ait' is a fairly simple word. What about 'Mozambique'? I feel a time-consuming project ahead. Actually, the dictionary is fool-proof. There are thirty-five examples using the word 'z' and even twenty-seven examples of the word 'q'. ... I found [Conley's dictionary and Jeff Grant's Concise Dictionary of 2 Letter Words] to be extremely educational, entertaining, and useful for a novice word counter. Maybe if I never let anyone use these books, I will be able to win all games which include identifying actual words in any given word.