import string


def remove_stop_words(word_list):
    """ Takes a list of words and returns a copy with all stop words removed """
    f = open('../stop_words.txt')
    stop_words = f.read().split(',')
    f.close()
    # add single-letter words
    stop_words.extend(list(string.ascii_lowercase))
    return [w for w in word_list if not w in stop_words]