Stopwords are words that are deemed to be so common in an online system that they have little information value. Thus, in order to enhance system performance for the online searcher, stopwords are not indexed, and therefore are not searchable. In practical terms, this means that the THOMAS searcher would not get any results from a search on a phrase such as "to be or not to be," since each of those words is a stopword in THOMAS.
The stopword list used by the InQuery search system in THOMAS comprises the following words:
A | B | C | D | E | F | H | I | L | M | N | O | P | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y
A
a, about, above, across, adj, after, afterwards, again, against, albeit, all, almost, alone, along, already, also, although, always, among, amongst, an, and, another, any, anyhow, anyone, anything, anywhere, are, around, as, at
B
be, became, because, become, becomes, becoming, been, before, beforehand, behind, being, below, beside, besides, between, beyond, both, but, by
C
can, cannot, co, could
D
down, during
E
each, eg, either, else, elsewhere, enough, etc, even, ever, every, everyone, everything, everywhere, except
F
few, first, for, former, formerly, from, further
H
had, has, have, he, hence, her, here, hereafter, hereby, herein, hereupon, hers, herself, him, himself, his, how, however
I
ie, if, in, inc, indeed, into, is, it, its, itself
L
last, latter, latterly, least, less, ltd
M
many, may, me, meanwhile, might, more, moreover, most, mostly, much, must, my, myself
N
namely, neither, never, nevertheless, next, no, nobody, none, no one, nor, not, nothing, now, nowhere
O
of, off, often, on, once one, only, onto, or, other, others, otherwise, our, ours, ourselves, out, over, own
P
per, perhaps
R
rather
S
same, seem, seemed, seeming, seems, several, she, should, since, so, some, somehow, someone, something, sometime, sometimes, somewhere, still, such
T
than, that, the, their, them, themselves, then, thence, there, thereafter, thereby, therefor, therein, thereupon, these, they, this, those, though, through, throughout, thru, thus, to, together, too, toward, towards
U
under, until, up, upon, us
V
very, via
W
was, we, well, were, what, whatever, whatsoever, when, whence, whenever, whensoever, where, whereafter, whereas, whereat, whereby, wherefrom, wherein, whereinto, whereof, whereon, whereto, whereunto, whereupon, wherever, wherewith, whether, which, whichever, whichsoever, while, whilst, whither, who, whoever, whole, whom, whomever, whomsoever, whose, whosoever, why, will, with, within, without, would
X
xsubj, xcal, xauthor, xother , xnote
Y
yet, you, your, yours, yourself, yourselves