Classified Ad Spelling Checker Wordlist

How to Check Spelling in Classified Ads

(Words for a Classified Ad Spelling Checker)

By Frank Cox

(July 31, 2011)

Updated April 13, 2013 - There have been a large number of "strange" hits on the plain text version of the classified ad wordlist, which makes me wonder if someone may be using the plain text wordlist as it was hosted here for some kind of nefarious purpose, though I have no idea what that could be. To address this possibility, I have removed the plain text version of the wordlist from this webpage and am now providing it as either a zip file or as a bzip2-compressed file. It's exactly the same wordlist as before, but now you have to decompress it before using it. Just click on one of the links at the bottom of this page to download it.

Classified ads are written to convey the maximum information in the fewest possible words. Accordingly, they contain many abbreviations, brand names, locations and deliberately mis-spelled words that appear nowhere else, and a lot of words that appear on standard wordlists would never appear in a classified ad.

This is a wordlist for a classified ad spelling checker. It contains 18,383 words that appear in classified ads.

Note that words that contain a number (example: JD1200) are not actually included in the wordlist. My classified ad spelling checker program assumes that words of one letter or words that contain a number are quantities or model numbers so they are assumed to be correct. Therefore, everything on the wordlist is two letters or more, and doesn't contain any numbers.

Some of the words on this list are local to the south-east Saskatchewan area, such as the names of some towns and regions.

The classified ad wordlist available for download from this webpage is subject to the following copyright notice:

CLASSIFIED AD WORDLIST - July 31, 2011
Copyright (c) 2011, Frank Cox
All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted
provided that the following conditions are met:
    * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
      notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
    * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
      notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
      documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY FRANK COX ''AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING,
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL FRANK COX BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL,
EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE
OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY
OF SUCH DAMAGE.

The classified ad wordlist is available in two compressed formats.

Click here to download the wordist as a zip file(44K).

Click here to download a bzip2-compressed version of the wordlist (60K).

Other articles written by Frank Cox can be found here.

Frank Cox owns and operates the Melville Theatre in Melville, Saskatchewan, Canada, and has been playing with computers for over 30 years.

July 31, 2011

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.