WORDS(5)

💖 WORDS(5) 💖

okay bestie so this is a section 5 manual page — that's the file formats section, iykyk — and it's all about the system word list situation on Linux. yes the title up top says WORDS(5) but the actual NAME is irish, and that's not a typo, that's the whole vibe. let's get into it 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

irish — a list of Irish words 🌈

like, literally just that. a word list. for Irish. slay.

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

/usr/share/dict/irish is an ASCII file that contains an alphabetic list of words, one per line. that's it. that's the file. no cap. 💅

🎀 FILES 🎀

• /etc/dictionaries-common/words — this one is a symbolic link to a /usr/share/dict/<language> file 👀
• /usr/share/dict/words — this is a symbolic link to /etc/dictionaries-common/words, and it's the name that other software should refer to when it wants the system word list. remember this one, it's the main character. 👑
• if you want more deets, go read select-default-wordlist(8) 💜

and here's a cute little fact: the directory /usr/share/dict can contain word lists for many languages 🦋 — with the name of the language written in English, like /usr/share/dict/french and /usr/share/dict/danish, which contain respectively lists of French and Danish words if they exist. (that "if they exist" is doing a lot of work bestie, don't count on them being there 🙈)

⚠️ also important: such lists should be coded using the ISO 8859-1 character set encoding. that's not a suggestion-fr-fr, that's the spec. 📝

🧚 SEE ALSO 🧚

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

💀 HISTORY 💀

so the tea is: the words lists are not specific, and may be generated from any number of sources. it's giving mysterious, it's giving unknown origins, we love that for them. 🎭

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. so like, check the new spot first, and if it's not there, go dig around in the old spot. lowkey a scavenger hunt. 🔍

🍓 AUTHOR 🍓

Alastair McKibstry <mckinstry@computer.org> and Kevin Scannell 🫶 absolute icons, we stan.

💌 and that's a wrap on the Linux Programmers Manual, WORDS(5), dated 29 Sept 1998 — shoutout to the whole Linux crew for this one. go forth and read your word lists responsibly. periodt. ✨🎀💖