Custom dictionaries are collections of words which have something in common (e.g. words relating to a particular sport, country or business). If you place them in the correct directory they appear automatically at the Input Stage and can be selected on or off for your subject text there. By choosing custom dictionaries that are relevant to the subject, more relevant subwords and thus anagrams can be found.
Custom dictionaries are simply text files (.txt) in the appropriate format, placed in the dictionaries directory immediately below where you installed Anagram Genius. Typically this will be:
c:\Program Files\Genius 2000\Anagram Genius v9\dictionaries\
but this directory may be different if you installed Anagram Genius elsewhere.
These files can be edited by any text editor such as Notepad. You can also add words to the custom dictionaries using the Add word dialog. This dialog can also be used to create a new custom dictionary (type the dictionary name into the Add to custom dictionary combo box instead of selecting from the list).
N.B. It is highly recommended that you only edit or add words to your own custom dictionaries. Changes to the ones supplied with the software may be overwritten if you ever upgrade or have to reinstall Anagram Genius.
Subwords found in custom dictionaries are automatically given a far higher score than ones found in the main lexicon. The reason is that Anagram Genius assumes that the topic for the custom dictionary is highly relevant for the subject and thus any hits within it are highly relevant words.
If you want to create a custom dictionary which is a supplement or replacement for the lexicon you should give it a name starting "lex" (e.g. "lexmywords.txt") and Anagram Genius will score the words as normal. In combination with the Use custom dictionaries only flag at the Input Stage this technique goes some way towards anagram generation in languages other than English.
Should you wish to edit the custom dictionaries using a text editor, the format of the files is as follows. More information about parts of speech can be found in the help topic Parts of Speech.
<word>,<part of speech>,<other attributes>,<rarity>
There is one entry per line. Alphabetical or other ordering of entries is not necessary. The word field is the only one which is mandatory: All the other fields can be left blank and Anagram Genius will fill in default values for them. (This makes the file format compatible with the user dictionaries of version 8 which can be transferred to version 9 simply by copying them into the dictionaries directory.)
Despite most of the fields being optional, it is highly recommended that at the very least you include a part of speech. Anagram Genius finds it far more difficult to choose an appropriate word order when this knowledge is missing and anagrams containing such words will be scored badly.
Comment lines must start with a "!" and they will be ignored by Anagram Genius. It is recommended that you keep comments to a single block at the start to simplify alphabetical sorting of custom dictionaries or future tools which will manage the dictionary.
<word> is the word in lowercase. If the first letter is uppercase Anagram Genius will assume it is always so. If all the word is in UPPERCASE Anagram Genius will print it in uppercase in any anagrams. i.e. Don't capitalise the first letter unless you want it so always.
<rarity> is a single digit from 0 to 9 expressing how useful the word is. Give the most useful terms a low number and the rarest a higher number. Average terms should be given "5". This number is used by Anagram Genius to partly determine what score to give the word and anagrams using this word.
<part of speech> is the type of word it can be, using the following code. If it can be more than one part of speech use more than one character. N.B. Case is important. "N" is different from "n". More information about parts of speech is in the help topic Parts of Speech.
N - a singular noun or noun phrase: "dog", "London", "big deal"...
p - a plural noun or noun phrase: "dogs", "maids of honor"...
S - a possessive singular or plural noun: "dog's", "champions'"...
A - normal adjective: "big", "green", "helpful"...
a - comparative adjective: "bigger", "greener", "more helpful"...
^ - superlative adjective: "biggest", "greenest", "most helpful"...
There are three symbols for each kind of verb form depending on whether the verb is chiefly transitive, chiefly intransitive or both transitive and intransitive. If you don't know what transitivity is, please see the help topic Parts of Speech for more information.
The order here is: both, transitive, intransitive.
V, B, b - base form: "run", "destroy", "sleep".
T, E, e - Third person singular: "runs", "destroys", "sleeps".
Q, G, g - present participle: "running", "destroying", "sleeping".
Z, J, j - past: "ran", "destroyed", "slept".
v - Adverb: "rarely", "happily"...
! - Interjection: "Wow!", "Oh My Goodness!"...
s - Sentence (or stand-alone clause): "No problem", "We're happy"...
P - preposition.
r - pronoun.
D - definite article.
I - indefinite article.
<other attributes>
These go immediately before the rarity value and use the following code. Again, these are case sensitive.
S - mildly satirical: "biased", "ordinary"...
G - strongly satirical: "moronic", "ugly-looking"...
Z - satirical only to women: "witch", "bitchy"...
T - satirical only to men: "sonofabitch", "ungentlemanly"...
A - flattering: "lovely", "genius"...
W - poetic: "raven-black", "dream-like", "silvery"...
D - Capitalised: "William", "San Francisco"... This can also be inferred from the word if you start it with an uppercase letter.
E - Uppercase: "UNESCO", "CIA", "MBA"... This can also be inferred from the word if you write it all in uppercase letters.
V - Strongly offensive. i.e. racial insults, strong profanity...
K - Second-tier offensive. i.e. milder profanity, sex-related terms...
Y - American-only word or spelling: "recolor", "lady bugs"...
U - British-only word or spelling: "bloke", "recolour"...
F - Female-related: "lady", "enchantress", "baby girl"...
L - Male-related: "virile", "boy", "himself"...
N - Not familiar. This simply suppresses it from being listed in the long words/phrases section of a report.
Other attributes and part of speech codes exist but are deprecated. Please use the above.