Scrabble Phoney Trainer

Scrabble Phoney Trainer is a tool to help you memorize short valid Scrabble words. After selecting a custom dictionary file, you will be presented with a word. You need to figure out if the word is a valid word or a phoney.

The tool works best for two- and three-letter words because it's harder to generate plausible-looking phonies for longer words.

Format for Dictionary File

• To use a dictionary file with just words and no definitions, put one word on every line.
• To use a dictionary file with both words and definitions, put one word-definition pair on every line, using a tab to separate the word and the definition.
• You can export a list from a Zyzzyva search using Right click -> Save list... -> Format: One Word Per Line -> OK and the list will be in the correct format for this application.

Supported Modes for Phoney Generation

The following modes for generating phonies are currently supported:

• Random: Pick a random valid word, and generate a random word with the same number of characters.
  • Example: CAT -> EWM
  • This mode should be the easiest since most random strings of characters are not valid words.
• Random-VC: Pick a random valid word, and generate a random word with the same number of characters. If the ith letter of the valid word is a vowel, then so is the ith letter of the random word. The same goes for consonants.
  • Example: CAT -> LIK
• Single: Pick a random valid word, and change one random letter of the word to another random letter.
  • Example: CAT -> CAU
• Single-VC (default): Pick a random valid word, and change one random letter of the word to another random letter. If the original letter was a vowel, it will be changed to a vowel. The same goes for consonants.
  • Example: CAT -> CIT

For all these modes, if the generated word happens to be valid, another one will be generated.

Customizable Parameters

• The parameter validProb specifies the probability that the next word is valid.
• The parameter reviewProb specifies the probability that the next word is a review of your previous mistake (false positive or false negative). If the next word is valid, you can only get a review question if you previously had at least one false negative. Similarly, if the next word is invalid, you can only get a review question if you previously had at least one false positive. The probability that a word is drawn is proportional to the number of times you got it wrong, so you're more likely to review a word that you got wrong many times.

Fun Fact

The plural of phony is phonies while the plural of phoney is phoneys or phonies. All these words are valid. However, phonys is phony!