there should be a central repository for all of the free, science and medicine related .dic files

dave

db

chemdictionary@gmail.com

For a word like analyse, it should be an s

Ahh… so we’re taking sides now, are we? ;)

AA- NOT from the UK…

I could perhaps try to sift through that and get out the chemical terms if you like, would that be of any use?

Any improvements to the dictionary will ultimately be of great help – as an incomplete/incorrect dictionary is never the goal. Thank you much for offering.

a list of named reactions and the top 10000 chemists in the world past and present would probably make a useful addition

I thought about that, as well as common abbreviations/molecular formulas (e.g. NaOH would be a misspelled word right now). I ultimately left them out, primarily because they are not ‘words’ but either proper names or formulas or abbreviations. What does the community think? Would including names/reactions/formulas be a useful and necessary improvement?

there’s probably no way to pool that kind of information easily…but I wonder whether there might be some way to assimilate it somehow

1st, dictionary files are not mutually exclusive. Installing this chemistry dictionary will not override any entries a user may have added-to-dictionary previously. Thus, if by assimilate you meant within one’s own personal computer, there should be no problems.

2nd, a bit of Microsoft trivia. If a user has previously added words to their dictionary, the added term is not appended to the user’s default English dictionary. Rather, Word creates a “custom” dictionary on your behalf, and conveniently names it CUSTOM.dic. Search your computer (Start Menu–>Search) for ‘custom.dic’ But before you begin the search, click on ‘More Advanced Options’ to make sure ‘Search Hidden Files and Folders’ is checked. That should point you to the location of your custom dictionary file.

As for pooling the information, here’s what I see. If we had some kind of virtual ‘drop box’ where users could submit a text file (.txt or .dic) with their own personal custom dictionary (preferably with only the chemistry relevant terms in it), those could be easily merged into this dictionary file.

DB (from the UK too)

For what it’s worth, I don’t have a dedicated chemical dictionary for my electronic wordprocessing, and many of the words that I have added as a result of dissertation writing and the like are merely names of authors (unless I needed further use, like mentioning Suzuki-Miyaura couplings every now and then). I could perhaps try to sift through that and get out the chemical terms if you like, would that be of any use?

S (from the UK)