The NASPA Zyzzyva FAQ, as with everything Zyzzyva-related, was originally written by Michael Thelen and then transferred to NASPA in 2014.
If you have a question that is not answered on this page, please send it to the NASPA Zyzzyva Committee mailing list. There are people on that list who generally respond quickly and helpfully to most questions. Additionally, full online help documentation for the latest version of Zyzzyva can be found here.
Why is the program called Zyzzyva?
Michael Thelen writes: I wanted to pick a fun word that was somewhat unique. I knew "zyzzyva" was one of the most improbable words to be played in a Scrabble game, and I liked the sound of it. Later on, after I had picked the name, I realized that since "zyzzyva" was also the last word in alphabetical order (it has since been replaced by "zzz"), I could call Zyzzyva "the last word" in word study. I wish I could say I was smart enough to come up with that slogan from the start.
Why is NASPA involved with Zyzzyva?
With the release of the OTCWL2014 and OSPD5 lexicons in 2014, Hasbro, Inc. began stronger enforcement of their copyrights on the word lists. This entailed a license agreement that would bind the licensee (Michael Thelen's Boshvark Software, LLC) to prevent the leakage of those lists, which had theretofore been a part of the Zyzzyva distribution. As a result, he decided to sell the product to NASPA, and the new NASPA Zyzzyva Committee began work to change the product so that it would comply with the terms of license, and to tie its availability to NASPA membership.
Beginning with version 3.1.0, NASPA Zyzzyva includes Collins lexicons under license, allowing "bilexical" players to study the current international and North American tournament lexicons and the differences between them.
Version 3.2.0 removed protection from the NASPA tournament/club and school lexicons, and version 3.2.1 removed protection from the Collins lexicons. This meant that a license was no longer required for NASPA members to use these lexicons, except to perform a one-time decryption of any existing quiz statistics databases.
Version 3.3.0 removed all vestiges of these licensing and decryption features. As of August 2021, NASPA and its activities are neither endorsed by nor affiliated with Hasbro or Mattel.
Why is Zyzzyva available for free?
Michael Thelen writes: I created Zyzzyva because I wanted a program for studying Scrabble words. There are several programs available, but all of them either lack features I wanted or do not run on Linux. I therefore took it upon myself to create the program I wanted, and Zyzzyva is the result.
NASPA adds: We appreciate Michael's efforts in developing Zyzzyva and are committed to continuing to make it freely available to the Scrabble community. For licensing reasons, however, and the need to support proprietary word lists, NASPA Zyzzyva is now closed-source.
When will NASPA Zyzzyva be available for my platform?
NASPA Zyzzyva is currently available for the Windows, macOS, and Linux platforms.
As of version 3.3.0, there is now a version for mobile devices, too!
When NASPA took over Zyzzyva development, the iOS version was already two iOS
updates obsolete. We have reinvented it as an app for iOS and Android, with
much the same user interface as that pre-2014 app, but built upon the same
base source code as the desktop version so that it can be developed in
parallel and new features added. For more information on NASPA Zyzzyva
Mobile, visit http://zyzzyva.net/.
How can I transfer my Zyzzyva data from one computer to another? You can transfer all your data to a new computer by copying your data
directory. You can find out where your Zyzzyva data directory is by opening
the Preferences window in Zyzzyva and looking at the Data Directory setting.
Make a copy of this directory, and move it to wherever you like, on the new
computer. Then, after you install Zyzzyva on the new computer, open the
Preferences window and change the Data Directory setting to point to wherever
you put your data directory from the original computer. The transfer should work regardless of the operating systems used on the two
computers. For example, you should be able to transfer your data directory
from a Windows computer to a Mac, or vice versa. How can I change the location of my data directory? To be on the safe side, we suggest you follow the detailed instructions
posted online
here. Can I keep my Zyzzyva data on a USB thumb drive? Absolutely. This may be a good option for anyone wanting to use Zyzzyva on
multiple computers without having to copy data directories back and forth.
Simply copy your data directory onto the USB drive (using the process
described to transfer Zyzzyva data from one computer to another).
Then open the Preferences window and change the Data Directory setting to
point to the data directory on the USB drive. How do I use word lists added in the latest version of NASPA
Zyzzyva? When you install a new version of NASPA Zyzzyva, it does not change the
list of lexicons to include any newly added word lists. Follow these instructions to make a word list available in NASPA
Zyzzyva: Where can I find word lists to use with NASPA Zyzzyva? If the word list is not included in NASPA Zyzzyva, you may be able to
load a text file version of the word list as a custom lexicon. It depends on the word list, but you should in general ask the
copyright holder for permission to use an electronic copy of the word
list. If you need help formatting it for use with Zyzzyva, please feel
free to contact us. How do I print a list of words? There is no print functionality built into Zyzzyva. You can, however,
right-click (Control-click on a Mac) on any
word list (e.g., Search results) and save it in plain text format. Then
manipulate the list and print it from a text editor program, like Notepad
on Windows. Why do I not see definitions in search results for a NASPA Word List
that I just loaded? After you load a word list, you must build the database for that word list.
Go to Tools -> Rebuild Database and choose the new word list or all word lists. Also, make sure that the Show Definitions option is checked in Word Table
Preferences under the Edit menu. Note that NASPA Zyzzyva's license to Collins word lists does not include
definitions. How does the Cardbox system work? The basic idea is that you must first tell Zyzzyva which words you'd like
it to keep track of. You generally do this by performing a search, then
right-clicking the search results and choosing "Add to Cardbox". Then Zyzzyva
keeps track of those words and automatically quizzes you on the ones it thinks
you need to see each day. When you miss a word frequently, Zyzzyva will show
it to you more often. A more detailed explanation is given in the Help documentation. How do I retain my quiz statistics and cardbox data when I want to
study a different word list? Cardboxes are separate for each word list. You can, however, import quiz
statistics and cardbox data from one word list to another. How do I remove all my cardbox data? Do the following: All your cardbox data will be removed from the system, but your historical
quiz data will be retained. When viewing search results, what are the marks at the beginning or
end of certain words? Those marks denote inner hooks - they mean that either the first or last
letter of the word can be dropped to form another valid word, depending on
where the mark appears. If the mark appears at the beginning of the word,
then the first letter can be dropped. If the mark appears at the end of the
word, then the last letter can be dropped. A more detailed explanation is
given in the
Help documentation. How does Zyzzyva calculate the probability of a word? There isn't a handy formula, but it's basically a straight
calculation of the number of possible combinations to get a particular set of
letters from a full bag, including blanks. Separate combination values are
calculated for drawing zero, one, or two blanks, and then the numbers of
combinations are added together to get the total number of ways of drawing a
word. If you're interested, you can see the source code for yourself
here (see LetterBag::getNumCombinations particularly).
Are you sure the probability calculation is accurate? It seems
unintuitive to me. Yep, it really is correct. The calculation of probability is notorious for
violating human intuition. One useful guideline to remember is that doubled or
tripled letters make a particular letter combination much more improbable than
you might think. That's because the number of ways to draw two identical
letters out of the bag is generally much lower than the number of ways to draw
two different letters out of the bag. If you'd like to verify the math, you
can see the source code for yourself
here (see LetterBag::getNumCombinations particularly).
Are you really sure about the probabilities? I need to see more
examples. Consider BAILERS versus BELIERS. BAILERS is a
fair amount more probable than BELIERS because of the doubled E's.
However, it seems intuitive to say, "If BEILRS has been drawn from
a full bag, then there are 9 A's and 11 E's in the remaining pool. The E is
the more likely draw, which means BELIERS should
be more probable than BAILERS." While it is true that drawing a single E is more likely than drawing a
single A, the math for calculating the probability of a word is more
complicated than that. You can't just start calculating with the assumption
that BEILRS has been drawn; those letters themselves factor into the
calculation, and they are not independent events. In this case, we can reduce
the difference between BAILERS and BELIERS to the difference
between drawing AE or EE when drawing two tiles from the bag. To reduce this to a simple example where it's easy to enumerate all
the possibilities, consider a 4-tile bag containing only AAEE. I'll
label the tiles A1, A2, E1, E2 for convenience. There are 6 possible
ways to draw two unordered tiles: A1 A2 = AA As you can see, AE is drawn 4/6 times, while AA is drawn only 1/6, and EE
is drawn only 1/6 as well. Even though A and E are equally likely to be drawn
if you are only drawing one tile, if you're drawing two tiles it is much more
likely to draw one of each than to draw duplicates. As another example, consider a bag where E is more likely than A, as is the
case in the full Scrabble bag. Consider a 6-tile bag containing AAEEEE, with
tiles labeled A1, A2, E1, E2, E3, E4. There are 15 possible ways to draw two
unordered tiles: A1 A2 = AA AA occurs 1/15 times, AE occurs 8/15 times, EE occurs 6/15 times. Even
though E is twice as likely as A, AE is still more likely than EE! This is the
same basic principle that also causes words with duplicate letters to be drawn
with lower probability from a full Scrabble bag. Complicating the math even further is the fact that Zyzzyva calculates
probabilities using a full 100-tile bag including two blanks. That may account
for differences (usually minor) with other probabilities you may have seen
calculated elsewhere, many of which use a 98-tile bag with no blanks. Why did Zyzzyva mark all my answers as missed when I actually got them
all correct? Zyzzyva only marks all responses as missed if you actually entered all the
correct responses, but also provided an incorrect response. The reason for
marking all responses as missed is because (currently) Zyzzyva has no other
way of marking the question as missed without marking at least one response as
missed. So instead of picking a random response to mark as missed, it marks
them all. This only happens if you have the 'Mark question as missed after an
incorrect response' setting activated, but not 'End question after an
incorrect response'. Technically, it could also happen if you have the 'End
question after an incorrect response' setting activated, but not 'End question
after all correct responses', and the incorrect response is the last one you
give. I love Zyzzyva so much that I would like to send you giant piles of
money. How can I do that? Michael Thelen originally wrote:
That is so nice of you!
I'm always very happy to receive donations of any amount. NASPA writes:
You can support NASPA Zyzzyva development and our other activities by
joining
NASPA or keeping
your membership current.
If you are feeling philanthropic, why not consider a donation
to our Foundation for
Youth Literacy?
A1 E1 = AE
A1 E2 = AE
A2 E1 = AE
A2 E2 = AE
E1 E2 = EE
A1 E1 = AE
A1 E2 = AE
A1 E3 = AE
A1 E4 = AE
A2 E1 = AE
A2 E2 = AE
A2 E3 = AE
A2 E4 = AE
E1 E2 = EE
E1 E3 = EE
E1 E4 = EE
E2 E3 = EE
E2 E4 = EE
E3 E4 = EE
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