Normal people don’t like playing Scrabble with me.
I have all the two-letter words memorised, I’m not bad with my three-letter hooks, and I always have a copy of the OSPD handy during a game. I also have a habit of laying tiles next to other tiles in a tight little bolus, which has the unfortunate effect of locking down the board so tightly that it can’t breathe. But I admit it’s a really unpleasant habit.
The other unpleasant habit I have is making up new words and placing them with confidence. I sometimes have to add, “It’s a word. I am a linguist, you know.”
Sometimes an opponent will complain about the words I use.
“Za? What’s za?” is how it typically begins.
“It’s short for ‘pizza’,” I explain.
“That’s stupid. ‘Za’ isn’t a word, and neither is ‘aa’, which you said was a kind of lava. I’m not going to play if you’re going to use dumb words.”
At this point I calmly remind my friend that we agreed on the OSPD.
“That’s dumb. Who said that those words should be in the OSPD?” says he or she, but usually she.
At this point I give the Every Lexicographer Has to Make Some Tough Choices speech, in my patient linguist voice. It usually doesn’t help, and there is much grumbling.
I tend to resist changes to Scrabble. I was against adding ‘qi’ to the Fourth Edition. I thought it made it too easy to unload the Q. Eventually I got used to it.
But now Mattel has gone too far.
The rules of word game Scrabble are being changed for the first time in its history to allow the use of proper nouns, games company Mattel has said.
Place names, people’s names and company names or brands will now count.
Mattel, which brings out a new version of the game containing amended rules in July, hopes the change will encourage younger people to play.
What, any proper noun? Xerox? Zovirax? Qwyjibo?
This doesn’t seem well-thought out. How can you check if a proper noun is unacceptable?
Mattel said there would be no hard and fast rule over whether a proper noun was correct or not.
I think I’m going to be kicking it Old School on this one. No proper nouns at my place. Or foreign words, abbreviations, or usu. cap.
7 April 2010 at 7:28 pm
Hit me up sometime. I will kick ya all over the scrabble board… and NO proper nouns.
8 April 2010 at 6:01 am
Oh now you've done it
IT IS SO ON
8 April 2010 at 10:07 am
And so dawned the Age of Scrabble Classicism…
8 April 2010 at 4:31 pm
I think I see a Daniel cartoon coming on. I wonder what I look like with no appendages.
8 April 2010 at 6:00 pm
ooh! ooh! Count me in. How about a little FB Scrabble Dan and Jeff?
No proper nouns! If that makes me a curmudgeon, so be it!
8 April 2010 at 8:25 pm
Er, I believe this is a hoax.
Apparently they are putting out a similar game with slightly different rules under a different name, but the rules of scrabble itself are not changing, at least if I remember a radio article I heard the other day rightly.
Anyway, a quick google search turned up http://www.geekosystem.com/scrabble-rule-change-proper-nouns-fake/
9 April 2010 at 2:08 am
Deb and Jeff: I'm up for it. Install the FB app and let's get busy.
Ed — yes, it appears to be a new version, same board, different rules. The Proper Travesty Edition.
Also, since Hasbro and Mattel are different entities, this has no bearing on the US version, which Hasbro owns. So I hear.
12 April 2010 at 6:25 pm
ok daniel, game has been up for days now and Deb and I are awaiting your presence.