Number of puzzlers with word list solutions to the puzzle:

What is this?

Target is a word game in which the aim is to find from nine letters as many words of four letters or more as possible which include the middle letter. At least one of the words should (or at least can - rules vary) be a nine-letter word. Target puzzles are typically found in the puzzle section of a newspaper. The Target puzzle also goes by other names, such as "Word Go Round".

This tool validates and then compares the word lists found by different puzzlers (you and your friends, presumably) for a given Target puzzle (or it just validates the given word list if only one is provided). Whilst it does check that the words occur in a dictionary of words based on a (some years old) list of words valid in Scrabble, please note that it does not check that (as most Target rulesets require) each word is NOT (merely) a plural ending in "S". This is because this information is not available to us from the word list we use. Instead, the tool simply flags words which end in "S" as "potentially valid".

Why?

Because a group of us compete in a friendly spirit over each Saturday's Target puzzle in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, and these online tools assist us in determining valid words and final counts. Mostly for the reference of those of us in this puzzling group, there is a link to our idiosyncratic rules below.