1. A computer-implemented method for searching a collection of machine-readable digital data, the method comprising: a computer receiving a given search word; the computer evaluating the search word against some or all words in a table, said table having rows and columns, each word residing in a different row and each letter of the word occupying a different column in that row, where the words are stored so as to preserve order of the letters within the words, and where each contiguous run of same letters in a column forms an interval, and such that lengths of the intervals are maximized to facilitate data searching, the evaluating operation comprising: for each target word in the table to which the search word is being evaluated, comparing, one letter at a time, letters of the search word to corresponding letters of the target word as represented by the columns in the table; if letters of the search word and the target word satisfy a predetermined matching condition, providing an output representing a successful match, otherwise, skipping ahead in the table to a row where a next interval begins in the column where the comparing operation encountered a letter of the search word failing to match a letter of the target word, and reinitiating the comparing operation; upon completing the evaluating operation without finding a successful match the computer providing an output representing a failed match.
3. The method of claim 1 , where: the comparing operation comprises the operations of: establishing a pointer for each letter of the search word, each pointer identifying a corresponding column in a first row of the table; comparing letters of the search word to letters at the corresponding pointers; the skipping operation comprises advancing each pointer to a row in the table where a next interval begins in a column where the comparing operation encountered the letter of the search word failing to match the letter of the target word.