I have a large file that contains a list that looks like e.g.

```
word_list =['word', 'charles', 'luciana', '<charles', '@', 'yes!']

```

I have a function to check items against this list:

```
def item_in_list(word):
    if any(word in item for items in word_list):
        return True
    else:
        return False

```

This works fine when checking e.g **True** is returned for:

```
item_in_list('charles')
item_in_list('luciana')

```

When i check where a symbol is included then it fails e.g.:

```
item_in_list('@')
item_in_list('<charles')

```

The debugging details are that I expected **True** to be returned and not **false**