canadian-english-large(5)

💖 canadian-english-large 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because today we're talking about canadian-english-large(5) — yes that (5) means it's a file format / misc page from the Users' Manual, and yes it's exactly as chaotic-glam as it sounds 🍓

✨ NAME ✨

canadian-english-large — it's a list of English words. that's it. that's the whole gig. no cap 🎀

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

/usr/share/dict/canadian-english-large is an ASCII file, and inside it is an alphabetic list of words, one per line. literally just words. stacked. alphabetically. one. per. line. it's giving very demure, very mindful, very dictionary 💅

🦋 FILES 🦋

so here's the tea, and it's actually important so lock in 🔥

There may be any number of word lists chilling in /usr/share/dict/.

/etc/dictionaries-common/words is a symbolic link pointing at whichever /usr/share/dict/<language> file is currently chosen. meanwhile /usr/share/dict/words is a symbolic link to /etc/dictionaries-common/words — and that is the name other software should use when it wants to refer to the system word list. like, that's the main character path, ok? 👑

want more info, or want to change which word list is the chosen one? go see select-default-wordlist(8). it does exactly what it says on the tin, slay ✨

also! the directory /usr/share/dict can hold word lists for many languages, and the language gets named in English. for example, /usr/share/dict/french and /usr/share/dict/danish contain, respectively, lists of French and Danish words — if they exist. and such lists should be coded using the ISO 8859-1 character set encoding. iconic. standard. periodt 🌈

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

• ispell(1)
• select-default-wordlist(8)
• and the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard

go read those if you want the full lore 🫶

💀 HISTORY 💀

The words lists are not specific, and may be generated from any number of sources. no single origin story, it's a whole collaborative vibe 😭

and plot twist: 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. so if you're writing something that needs the word list, check both, bestie. don't get caught lacking 🙈

🧚 AUTHOR 🧚

Word lists are collected and maintained by various authors — it's a group project, and somehow nobody rage-quit 💜

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>. give that man his flowers 💐

⭐ tiny reminder: the (5) in canadian-english-large(5) means this is a file-formats / conventions page, not a command. you don't run it, you read it. iykyk 💅

and that's the whole page!! this came from Debian, dated 16 June 2003, for canadian-english-large(5) — and honestly? a 2003 banger that still holds up. mwah. bye bestie 🎀💖✨