IMHO Cecil ought to have updated this classic rerun; things have changed in Scrabble land. In American play, the Official Word List (OWL) and Total Word List (TWL) utilized in tournament play each include 96 two letter words:
AA AB AD AE AG AH AI AL AM AN AR AS AT AW AX AY
BA BE BI BO BY DE DO ED EF EH EL EM EN ER ES ET EX FA GO HA HE HI HM HO ID IF IN IS IT JO KA LA LI LO MA ME MI MM MO MU MY NA NE NO NU OD OE OF OH OM ON OP OR OS OW OX OY PA PE PI RE SH SI SO TA TI TO UH UM UN UP US UT WE WO XI XU YA YE YO
while the SOWPODS list, used in UK/Commonwealth play, as well as many international tournaments, contains, I think, 101 words:
AA AB AD AE AG AH AI AL AM AN AR AS AT AW AX AY BA BE BI BO BY CH DA DE DI DO EA ED EE EF EH EL EM EN ER ES ET EX FA FY GI GO GU HA HE HI HM HO ID IF IN IO IS IT JO KA KO KY LA LI LO MA ME MI MM MO MU MY NA NE NO NU NY OB OD OE OF OH OI OM ON OO OP OR OS OU OW OX OY PA PE PH PI PO QI RE SH SI SO ST TA TE TI TO UG UH UM UN UP UR US UT WE WO XI XU YA YE YO YU ZO
Call me a traditionalist, but I’m not a fan of all those words. “AA”? “WO?” “OX”? Oh yeah, “OX” is actually a legitimate word. Maybe I’d allow them (house rules) when there aren’t any more tiles to pick, but I wouldn’t allow them during normal play. Hmm…
Aa is a perfectly fine word imported from Hawaiian, meaning chunky lava flows. Pahoehoe is it’s complement, refering to ropy lava flows. These words are actually used by geologists.
Next thing you know you’ll be complaining about ai (a word imported from Brazil meaning tree sloth)!
I’ve used aa before. And I’m not even a vulcanologist, just a fan of volcanoes. One time I named my entire Sims family after volcano terms. “Hi, I’m Caldera Pahoehoe, and these are my neice Tephra and my nephew Andesite.”
Oh yeah, Scrabble. I like to be a good sport. If I don’t think the other players know a word, I won’t use it.
The last time I played scrable with someone, AA and OD were both used against me. I dont care if its legal or not, playing with people like that isn’t fun.
The last time I played scrable with someone, AA and OD were both used against me. I dont care if its legal or not, playing with people like that isn’t fun.
Well, there are certainly different types of Scrabble playing- there’s kids on the floor of the den, grownups grabbing a game with relatives over the kitchen table, nerds playing grudge matches with each other for money in the pub, weekend tournament players, and the serious die-hards. And I think it’s a fun game in any of these calibers, despite being a somewhat different game for each, and the “unfun” part is when you’re playing someone else’s game. At the much higher levels, it turns into a hobby of list memorization and probabilities, and they are quite comfortable playing words for which they have know idea what the emaning is, it becomes a set of acceptable letter patterns rather than Words.
But if I were to play with my husband’s 11 year old neice, it probably wouldn’t be much fun for either of us, nor if I played the world champion. Me and my pals have sucked it up and all know the full list of twos and most of the threes, and work for the bingo, mostly just keeping up with the joneses. And we play a lot, so we must still be having fun.
The missing words from the original list (for the American game) are:
And from the list that Cecil posted, I see a mistake! from jormundgondir lists we can see that “DA” is not in any of the officially approved lists!
[sub]What is with Russian and scrabble? I mention that because an aunt of mine recently thought Nyet was a valid word, she lost a turn after I challenged it. She beat us anyway because her next play was a bingo. (mumble… mumble…)[/sub]
Need to pay more attention: I should have said that DA is accepted, but only in the UK version. However, the list in the article IS for the American version.
“You wouldn’t allow” :dubious: You’d better only play with people you can bully into accepting your own idiosyncratic rules then. I guess you “won’t allow” a lot of other, longer words then too. But please, when you play with someone who knows what they’re doing, don’t be one of those people who accuses them of cheating because they know a few odd words. At home, sure, you can bully your kids; shame they’ll get creamed when they play others. Does a number on their self-esteem, but losing is character building, I guess.
I’m pretty sure I’ve got somewhere around my house the Spanish version of scrabble, complete with those and 'll’s and 'rr’s and I think 'ch’s as well. I believe I got it as a prize for doing really well on some state-wide Spanish exam in high school. You should dig up that version and stick it together with an English version… put the two boards together and make one big tile pile.