Scrabble: 3,000 new words

[Dick Whitman]

As a bit of a Scrabble enthusiast, I don't like this development.

Now comes news that Scrabble is admitting 3,000 new words, including slang such as THANG, GRRL, and INNIT; technological terms like WEBZINE and FACEBOOK (as a verb); and u-less words including QIN (a Chinese zither) and FIQH (an expansion of Islamic sharia law). (Scrabblers use uppercase when referring to words in the context of the game.) Seattlest reports that Scrabble "just got a lot more hip, and a little more easy."

http://www.slate.com/id/2293903/

 

[deskslave]

QIN changes nothing, because QI was already legal and a favorite way to dispose of Qs if the Us had run out.

As far as grrl, thang and innit, not in any damn game of Scrabble I'm playing. And get off my lawn.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Never mind. I should have read the same article. Those words are for non-North America players, not us.

False alarm.

 

[Dick Whitman]

QIN changes nothing, because QI was already legal and a favorite way to dispose of Qs if the Us had run out.

As far as grrl, thang and innit, not in any damn game of Scrabble I'm playing. And get off my lawn.

I used ZA a few weeks ago, and my wife's aunt flipped out about it. "That's not a word! That's not a word!" "It's in the Players' Dictionary." "I don't care what that book says. That is NOT a word."

She was seriously pissed and thought I shouldn't be allowed to use it.

 

[deskslave]

First thing you do if you start entering Scrabble tournaments: learn all the two-letter words (and that C and V are the only two letters that you can't make a two-letter word out of). Then you learn the three-letter words.

I must get around to finishing Word Freak at some point.

 

[Moderator1]

Stefan Fatsis, who wrote Word Freak (a must read), put something on Facebook about this. I found the "thang" thing interesting. How can thang count when it isn't really a word?

 

[Sea Bass]

I am a bit perturbed that Scrabble does not allow "zen."

 

[OnTheRiver]

I am a bit perturbed that Scrabble does not allow "zen."

Irony.

 

[deskslave]

It's a proper noun, same as Jew or Buddhist.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Stefan Fatsis, who wrote Word Freak (a must read), put something on Facebook about this. I found the "thang" thing interesting. How can thang count when it isn't really a word?

Scrabble is pretty objective about it. If it appears in one of the recognized dictionaries they use, it goes into the book. The answer, I guess, is that language evolves, and what isn't a word at one point becomes one. I think dictionaries keep track of usage in print media and so forth to determine if a "word" has moved beyond slang.

 

[Sea Bass]

It's a proper noun, same as Jew or Buddhist.

Ah, I didn't know that was a rule.

 

[Mystery Meat II]

It's a proper noun, same as Jew or Buddhist.

JEW, as a verb, is actually in the OSPD 2 and Official Tournament and Club Word List. Along with BOOBIE, FARTED and FATSO. But due to backlash from the Anti-Defamation League, they are not in OSPD 3.