Does Ubuntu work with Winzip and War files. Some of the files I will be downloading will be zipped or in the War file types. Thanks

Also is there a list of phrases or words used in the linux system, this will help me while I wait delivery of the disc I ordered. Thanks again.

Yes, Ubuntu work with zip & war. You can simply use File-roller.
I think you need something like Linux dictionary or glossary?
See this.

File-roller is just a front-end ("cover") to make it easy to use several different un/compressing tools; it doesn't, as far as I know, do much anything unless the actual tools (that are usually command-line programs) are installed (and they usually are). The basic tools are compress (.Z), gzip (.gz), bzip2 (.bzip2) and zip (.zip). So there's a zip for Linux too; don't let WinZip fool you to think it's the only Zip program in the world There're actually several others, like 7-Zip. Anyway, those un/compressing programs usually like to work in the command-line environment (because there's no need to have a graphical user interface just to compress or uncompress something), File-Roller and such interfaces are just a very nice way to have them work together in a good-looking manner. It's sometimes easier for a new Linux user, too, to have a graphical tool in front of you for the daily tasks than try to learn the various command-line programs and their usage right away..

Well, shortly said, Zip and several others work well under Linux. Rar too, but that's probably not open source.. Zip is, if I'm right, less used under Linux than gzip or bzip2 for example, but it's a matter of personal taste (actually there are physical differences between the compressing utilies, that are shown firstly in the file size of the compressed archive, so it might make a difference for you).