I agree. I also have a long list of English words sorted alphabetically. I received the original file in .zip format and keep that as backup. I keep the working copy in plain text, one word per line. On average, I add one new word every few months. It is convenient to do this with my editor (gvim). I originally planed to develop a library of functions to access the list so I could change the format without changing my applications. My 'lazy' approach worked so well that I could never justify the effort.