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Scrabble rule change allows use of 'OK'

theguardian.com

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Re: Scrabble rule change allows use of 'OK'

#21

Post by mj_olnir »

alreadyaword wrote: post #18
glitchc wrote: post #5

Next: KO

KO is already a valid word in international (English language) tournament play. Personally, I am sad about this. Serious scrabble play is largely about rack management - i.e. trying to get a set of tiles that you can play all at once for a 50 point bonus (bingo). That means dumping tiles that make it harder to score a bingo (duplicates, difficult letters) while taking into consideration the likelihood of drawing bett…

I'm unfamiliar - do common noun acronyms (like scuba) with more common usage than their full-fledged counterparts get in?

If so, I could see UV being added.

Re: Scrabble rule change allows use of 'OK'

#22

Post by chrisweekly »

gerry_shaw wrote: post #17

The addition of ze (gender-neutral pronoun) is even better than OK.

(tangent to scrabble per se)

I like the idea of "ze" (gender-neutral pronoun), but this is the first I've come across it. Hopefully it'll catch on as IMHO it's a big improvement over alternatives like "they".

While on the topic of "missing" words, when will our language finally get something reasonable for "you (plural)"?? Extant "y'all" (southern) and "yous" (NJ) are not cutting it!

Re: Scrabble rule change allows use of 'OK'

#23

Post by mj_olnir »

mj_olnir wrote: post #21
alreadyaword wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

KO is already a valid word in international (English language) tournament play. Personally, I am sad about this. Serious scrabble play is largely about rack management - i.e. trying to get a set of tiles that you can play all at once for a 50 point bonus (bingo). That means dumping tiles that make it harder to score a bingo (duplicates, difficult letters) while taking into consideration the likelihood of drawing bett…

I'm unfamiliar - do common noun acronyms (like scuba) with more common usage than their full-fledged counterparts get in? If so, I could see UV being added.

Edit: just kidding, KO is in, and a quick search says scuba is in as well. Yeah, I'm very surprised that UV is not.

Re: Scrabble rule change allows use of 'OK'

#24

Post by hammock »

I've posted this before but in my family we play serious Scrabble but with house rules that improve the game.

Rule 1: On your turn, but before playing your word, any letter in your hand may be swapped with any letter on the board, as long as the swap makes a valid word (some people already do this with blanks, we do it with any letter). Swap one letter at a time, as many times as you like. No points are scored for swaps, just for playing your word.

Rule 2: Dictionary may be consulted at any time to look up a specific word - however you cannot "leaf" or browse through it. Dictionary priority goes to whoever's turn it is.

The net result of this variation is that

a) the board remains MUCH more open the whole game - there are many more places to play, and the words played are more likely to be bingos or longer words, which in turn open the baord up even more. Often under official rules you get three or four letter words that just close down the future play possibilities.

b) high-point letters which usually are "luck of the draw" like Q and Z, now become skillful, since they will be reused by many players throughout the game

c) turns can take 5-10 minutes at a time :)

Source: my grandmother, who played these rules with the inventor of Scrabble back in college, before he had sold the game for mass distribution (they changed his rules to simplify them)

Re: Scrabble rule change allows use of 'OK'

#25

Post by glitchc »

alreadyaword wrote: post #18
glitchc wrote: post #5

Next: KO

KO is already a valid word in international (English language) tournament play. Personally, I am sad about this. Serious scrabble play is largely about rack management - i.e. trying to get a set of tiles that you can play all at once for a 50 point bonus (bingo). That means dumping tiles that make it harder to score a bingo (duplicates, difficult letters) while taking into consideration the likelihood of drawing bett…

To my knowledge, KO is only accepted in the CSW list and is not part of OWL/TWL.

Link: https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Scrabble/Two_Letter_Words

Re: Scrabble rule change allows use of 'OK'

#26

Post by sdegutis »

chrisweekly wrote: post #22
gerry_shaw wrote: post #17

The addition of ze (gender-neutral pronoun) is even better than OK.

(tangent to scrabble per se) I like the idea of "ze" (gender-neutral pronoun), but this is the first I've come across it. Hopefully it'll catch on as IMHO it's a big improvement over alternatives like "they". While on the topic of "missing" words, when will our language finally get something reasonable for "you (plural)"?? Extant "y'all" (southern) and "yous" (NJ) are not cutting it!

> when will our language finally get something reasonable for "you (plural)"?? Extant "y'all" (southern) and "yous" (NJ) are not cutting it!

We still have ye.

Re: Scrabble rule change allows use of 'OK'

#27

Post by frogpelt »

hammock wrote: post #24

I've posted this before but in my family we play serious Scrabble but with house rules that improve the game. Rule 1: On your turn, but before playing your word, any letter in your hand may be swapped with any letter on the board, as long as the swap makes a valid word (some people already do this with blanks, we do it with any letter). Swap one letter at a time, as many times as you like. No points are scored for sw…

How are Q and Z getting reused so much? There can't be that many times they can be replaced with another letter can there?

Also, after I saw how many "words" are in the Scrabble dictionary I realized that Scrabble was not a vocabulary/spelling competition like I thought when I first played. Some of those "words" are a joke, a few are mentioned in the article (eeew being one example).

Re: Scrabble rule change allows use of 'OK'

#28

Post by Theodores »

mistrial9 wrote: post #8

playing a lot of scrabble -- our regular play includes a list of two-letter words on paper, in pencil, nearby to settle disputes (not visible during play). The arguments get heated ! .. (our list is smaller than the official list of two letter words, based on mutual agreement of real-world use). Personal opinion is that the official list is already too broad, and makes the play "muddy." Dictionary exploration is nerd…

It used to be 102 two letter words that were allowed, memorising all of them was not difficult, you would just know them if you played fairly regularly. Occasional players (who you probably wouldn't be playing with if you played regularly) would not know the 102 two letter words. Slightly more to remember than the alphabet, but anything wrong on the board would be easy to spot as wrong, no risk in making a challenge.

As for dictionaries, mobile phones and apps changed everything. However, before these 'advances' the dictionary to use was the correct Scrabble one.

What I liked about the proper Scrabble dictionary was that none of the words were explained. So you could play words beyond your normal level of spoken English without knowing what they meant, but you would know they were in the proper Scrabble dictionary. So you could have 'ax' and not know what it meant or extend it on the next go to 'axon' with no idea what that meant. You did know from previous games that this was legit and that was all that mattered.

To people not in the game this dictionary seemed absurd. The language had morphed into code. A code that you had to know if you were ever to have a chance of using complete 7 letter 'laydowns' several times in a game and do those cool two letter joins to make such things possible.

Re: Scrabble rule change allows use of 'OK'

#29

Post by oh_sigh »

chrisweekly wrote: post #22
gerry_shaw wrote: post #17

The addition of ze (gender-neutral pronoun) is even better than OK.

(tangent to scrabble per se) I like the idea of "ze" (gender-neutral pronoun), but this is the first I've come across it. Hopefully it'll catch on as IMHO it's a big improvement over alternatives like "they". While on the topic of "missing" words, when will our language finally get something reasonable for "you (plural)"?? Extant "y'all" (southern) and "yous" (NJ) are not cutting it!

Why is it a big improvement over 'they'? Singular they has become popular naturally, whereas 'ze' has existed for years without anyone naturally using it(except for trolls on the internet).

Re: Scrabble rule change allows use of 'OK'

#30

Post by jolmg »

hammock wrote: post #24

I've posted this before but in my family we play serious Scrabble but with house rules that improve the game. Rule 1: On your turn, but before playing your word, any letter in your hand may be swapped with any letter on the board, as long as the swap makes a valid word (some people already do this with blanks, we do it with any letter). Swap one letter at a time, as many times as you like. No points are scored for sw…

On your Rule 1, do I understand that you can swap any number of letters on your turn before playing your word but with every 1-letter swap, the words need to remain valid? It's not good enough if you need to swap multiple letters before getting to a different valid word?
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