updated dictionary, please

[kytbell]

Is it possible to get an updated dictionary, please? There are sooooo many words now in our vocabularies that weren't in 2018, the date on current offerings. For example, the other day my friend tried to play "covid," but the automatic challenge rejected it. The current US English dictionaries also seem very sporadic in which words they will allow you to make plural and which ones they won't. I understand Scrabble dictionaries are the i-ching when it comes to this sort of game (and likely that Scrabble sells an SDK, making it easier for BGA coders) but can't we get just a basic Merriam-Webster or Oxford English Dictionary version? It's frustrating to have words (REAL words, words in the dictionary that we use every day!) rejected over and over by unpredictable, incomplete, four year-old dictionaries.

[ufm]

While Google and companies with unlimited money can afford to license a premium dictionary like Oxford or Merriam-Webster, but BGA cannot pay these costs, especially for a free (non-premium) game. You can see the Oxford pricing at https://developer.oxforddictionaries.com/ -- it costs about $0.0028 USD per lookup. That might not sound like a lot, but based on current stats, there are around 100 - 200 games per day with an average of 2.8 players each spelling 17.8 words per game. If all those games were to use Oxford's dictionary, it would be around 5,000 - 10,000 lookups and $14 - $28 per day in costs. Yikes! Premium members on BGA only pay $2 per month and that money is already split between site upkeep and game licensing costs.