import string


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