As world Scrabble champion, I think new words are obvs lolz
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Version 0 of 1. A new version of Collins Official Scrabble Words has been published, adding 6,500 new words – including modern slang such as “twerking” and “shizzle” – to the popular board game’s approved list. You might expect competitive Scrabble players to be purists, but as reigning world Scrabble champion I have as keen an interest as anyone in the next batch of words to come into the game. For a player, new words provide fresh ammunition and change the dynamics a little here and there, as well as giving me something new to learn, of course. I personally look forward to these updates; they keep things fresh. If there’s a huge amount of new material it can mean a lot of work, but most players find it fun and will be looking forward to putting some of their newfound friends down on the board. I use a programme called Zyzzyva to study, which is freely available on the internet. I enter the words I want to learn into a “cardbox” system which means they will come up more or less often depending on my need to familiarise myself with them. So a rack with one of the words comes up, either scrambled or in alphabetical order. If I don’t find the answer, the letters will come up again the next day. Consistently typing in the correct answers for a particular rack means it will come up less and less often because you don’t need as much practice. But away from the mechanical side of studying the new tools in my arsenal, new words take me on an enlightening journey. Words reflect culture, particularly modern culture (I’ve honestly never heard of most of the latest additions). Naturally there’s a lot of technological jargon and inevitably some of it will be outdated in a few years’ time. There is plenty of slang, but if it is used widely enough then I think, yes, it should be included, regardless of where it originated. There will always be words people don’t like, but all you can ask of a dictionary is consistency. Language continues to evolve and so Scrabble and its word bible must keep up too. Of the new words “aji” (a spicy pepper), “tiz” (a state of confusion) and “pwn” (slang, to dominate or humiliate an opponent especially in online gaming) are some of the most useful to Scrabblers. As a gamer myself I’ve seen pwn countless times and I don’t think anyone can deny its popular usage. I can see that people might not like the word being included, but don’t see any logical way of excluding it without also excluding plenty of other perfectly reasonable words. So next time you have seven consonants on your rack and N, P, and W are among them, enjoy the fact that you can at least make a three-letter word. My 10 favourite Scrabble words: • Talaq – a Muslim form of divorce. I learned the word through Scrabble without knowing what it meant. Then it helped me win the world championship. Then everyone kept telling me the definition and so the cycle was complete. • Matilda – a word for a hobo’s bundle. Just because it’s a fun word. • Ekpweles – a former monetary unit of Equatorial Guinea. I love the weirdness of how it is spelled. • Pekepoo – a dog that’s a cross between a Pekingese and a poodle – one of many interesting portmanteau words. • Pakapoo – a Chinese lottery, not another breed of dog. • Amphoric – pertaining to the sound of blowing in a bottle. I love that there’s a word for it. • Taghairm – another incredibly specific word, this one relating to a mode of divination often involving freshly slain ox, waterfall and a rainbow. • Napiform – meaning shaped like a turnip. • Bumbaze – to bamboozle or perplex. This was a word I learned from an opponent playing it against me; I then used it a year later to score 212 points in one move. |