Unix Dictionaries

[dndobrin at athena.MIT.EDU]

Does anyone out there know where the 4.x or System V dictionaries come from?  Did someone just copy in a standard dictionary?  Were the words chosen by the Bell Labs (?) programmers?  How exactly do the suffix and prefix (?) algorithms work?  

And on and on.  Are there many different versions of the dictionary?  How many words does it check?  Since it's hashed, is there any way of correcting the original?  Is somebody out there an authority?

Mostly I'm just curious, but I could also use the answers for an article I'm writing.  I will summarize answers and post them to the list.

David N. Dobrin  
Lexicom
(617) 492-8035
1612 Cambridge St.
Cambridge  MA  02138

dndobrin at athena.mit.edu