# Can I change what constitutes a "word" in terms of selection?
**URL:** https://discuss.codemirror.net/t/can-i-change-what-constitutes-a-word-in-terms-of-selection/5747
**Category:** v6
**Created:** [February 17, 2023, 11:27pm UTC](https://discuss.codemirror.net/t/can-i-change-what-constitutes-a-word-in-terms-of-selection/5747 "2023-02-17T23:27:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@trafnar](https://discuss.codemirror.net/u/trafnar)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2023, 11:27pm UTC](https://discuss.codemirror.net/t/can-i-change-what-constitutes-a-word-in-terms-of-selection/5747/1 "2023-02-17T23:27:11Z")
I’d like to be able to double click and select an entire word, even if it includes a `'` mark. Such as `it's`. And be able to use option+shift+arrow (on mac) to select words to the left/right. Currently those stop at the `'` character.
Is it possible to modify those boundary characters to determine what constitutes a word?
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### Author:  [@marijn](https://discuss.codemirror.net/u/marijn)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2023, 11:41pm UTC](https://discuss.codemirror.net/t/can-i-change-what-constitutes-a-word-in-terms-of-selection/5747/2 "2023-02-17T23:41:22Z")
Only with the [`wordChars`](https://codemirror.net/docs/ref/#state.EditorState.charCategorizer) language data, which may not be powerful enough for what you’re trying to do here.
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### Author:  [@trafnar](https://discuss.codemirror.net/u/trafnar)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2023, 6:21pm UTC](https://discuss.codemirror.net/t/can-i-change-what-constitutes-a-word-in-terms-of-selection/5747/3 "2023-02-21T18:21:18Z")
That worked great and is already live in my app [tasktxt.com](https://www.tasktxt.com)
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### Author:  [@reinhard](https://discuss.codemirror.net/u/reinhard)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2025, 3:26pm UTC](https://discuss.codemirror.net/t/can-i-change-what-constitutes-a-word-in-terms-of-selection/5747/4 "2025-04-30T15:26:20Z")
Is there also a way to remove a wordChar from an existing language?
I am using codemirror/lang-sass and would like to remove the ‘-’ from the wordChars 🤔
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### Author:  [@marijn](https://discuss.codemirror.net/u/marijn)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2025, 5:50am UTC](https://discuss.codemirror.net/t/can-i-change-what-constitutes-a-word-in-terms-of-selection/5747/5 "2025-05-02T05:50:42Z")
No, that’s not possible — at least not without creating your own `LRLanguage` object for the language.
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### Author:  [@reinhard](https://discuss.codemirror.net/u/reinhard)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2025, 8:19am UTC](https://discuss.codemirror.net/t/can-i-change-what-constitutes-a-word-in-terms-of-selection/5747/6 "2025-05-02T08:19:16Z")
Makes sense! Thanks!