1. A word recognition system for recognizing an input signal entered by a user via a shorthand-on-keyboard interface, the system comprising: a core lexicon comprising commonly used words, wherein the commonly used words were selected for the core lexicon based on an associated frequency of use value for each word being above a pre-determined threshold, and wherein the frequency of use values are not based on candidate selections by the user; an extended lexicon comprising words not contained in the core lexicon; a recognition module for recognizing words associated with the input signal; a selector module for outputting an output word associated with the input signal from the core lexicon; and a module for admitting, from the extended lexicon to the core lexicon, a candidate word associated with the input signal, upon a first selection of the candidate word by the user, to create an augmented core lexicon.