british-english-small(5)

💖 british-english-small 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to british-english-small(5) — that's section 5 of the Users' Manual, and yes, she's a whole vibe. it's a word list. literally just a word list. and the way that it's just a word list is honestly iconic. 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

british-english-small — a list of English words 🦋

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so like. /usr/share/dict/british-english-small is an ASCII file and it contains an alphabetic list of words, one per line. that's it. that's the whole girl. no cap. 💅

🎀 FILES 🎀

okay this part is lowkey the main character so pay attention bestie 👑

• there may be any number of word lists in /usr/share/dict/.
• /etc/dictionaries-common/words is a symbolic link to the currently-chosen /usr/share/dict/<language> file. (yes, <language> is a placeholder, don't come for me 💀)
• /usr/share/dict/words is a symbolic link to /etc/dictionaries-common/words, and it is the name by which other software should refer to the system word list. like, that's the government name. that's what you put on the forms.
• see select-default-wordlist(8) for more info, and/or to change the currently-chosen word list. she can do both. versatile queen. 💅

the directory /usr/share/dict can contain word lists for many languages, with the name of the language in English, e.g., /usr/share/dict/french and /usr/share/dict/danish contain respectively lists of French and Danish words — if they exist. (big if. conditional queen. we stan an honest manpage 🙈)

such lists should be coded using the ISO 8859-1 character set encoding. not vibes. ISO 8859-1. specifically. 😤

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• ispell(1)
• select-default-wordlist(8)
• and the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. (her, the FHS, the blueprint, the blueprint-est 💜)

🦋 HISTORY 🦋

so the words lists are not specific, and may be generated from any number of sources. mystery origin story. very mysterious. very "we don't know her past and we don't ask". 🕵️♀️

and the system word list used to be /usr/dict/words. for compatibility, software should check that location if /usr/share/dict/words does not exist. that's a real instruction bestie, don't skip it, the old path is giving legacy but she still matters 💀✨

💜 AUTHOR 💜

word lists are collected and maintained by various authors. (a collective. a girl gang. we love to see it 🫶)

the Debian English word lists are built from the SCOWL (Spell-Checker Oriented Word Lists) package, whose upstream editor is Kevin Atkinson <kevina@users.sourceforge.net>. king behavior honestly 👑

and that's the whole page, bestie!! 🌈 this one came out of the Debian fam, dated 16 June 2003 — yes she's a 2003 baby and she is thriving, ageless icon, no notes 💖✨🎀