Scrabble

[Paul Habershon]

I started playing tournament Scrabble nearly ten years ago. It's been much slower than chess at resuming OTB during the pandemic.

There is a grading system and a typical tournament is divided into three sections A, B, C. I have improved slightly to top of C or bottom half of B but Section A is another world. I expected to meet some other chess players but have come across only R C (Bob) Lynn, whom some of you may remember. He is at least a solid B Section player but now inactive in chess, I think.

I have revived the topic (previously discussed here under 'Word Wars') because I have just received a booklet listing 419 words which will be deemed invalid from April 2022. Mattel, the owners of Scrabble, have controversially decided that the game should be more 'family-friendly' (= politically correct), so various offensive words, mostly slurs racial and otherwise, will be removed. Opposition from the Association of British Scrabble Players, and no doubt other national bodies, proved futile.

Thus I now have a booklet to teach me offensive words, most of which I never knew existed. The four-letter f and c words are not banned (so much for family-friendly). I was surprised by SQUAW, thinking, obviously wrongly, that it's not pejorative. Another one is BUBBA, the nickname of golfer Watson. Apparently it's a term of endearment meaning 'little brother'. However, as it originated in the southern United States, it can refer to a person of low class. MICK is banned, presumably to cater for Irish sensibilities, but 'taking the mick' seems an inoffensive expression. Very confusing.

All these words feature in good dictionaries. It would be much simpler and less subjective to allow all of them. Scrabble is not a game of meanings and tournament Scrabble players tend to be unshockable.

[Kevin Thurlow]

I used to play Scrabble socially, but no longer have the interest to learn every legal two-letter word.

I thought "squaw" was a "Native-American" word? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaw agrees, and given the tone of the piece, it probably is. Of course acceptability of words changes over time. The old common name for the bird now called a "kestrel" was "wind-f*cker", as its wings beat (original meaning of f-word) the air, when hovering.

I suppose Bubba Watson will still be able to play the Masters at Augusta, as that's in the South.

As for, "taking the mick", that is nothing to do with Ireland, it is short for "taking the micturition", in other words, "taking the p*ss".

As indeed are Mattel. Remember it was Mattel who tried to take legal action over the Aqua song about Barbie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyhrYis509A as they said it reflected badly on the image of Barbie. Yeah, right.

I agree that if you asked players to define the words they used in Scrabble (or Countdown, Des Chiffres et des Lettres etc), many would fail. In fact, rude words turn up on Countdown every so often and are bleeped out and omitted from the subtitles. If very rude words turn up, they just run the round again and feed the competitors a word of the same length as they got in the abandoned round.

Scrabble players (like chess players) want to win, so if a word is legal, they will use it.