Accepted Scrabble Words
Players may place any word which can be found in a standard English language dictionary. Official Scrabble dictionaries also can be found in bookstores and online.
Types of words which cannot be used are abbreviations, prefixes and suffixes. Words that require a hyphen or an apostrophe cannot be played. Words that are spelled with a capital letter cannot be used.
Generally speaking in an English-language game of Scrabble, foreign words cannot be placed on the Scrabble board. If those words appear in a standard English dictionary, then the word is allowable. This is because the word is spoken often enough by native English-speakers that it has become a part of the English language.
On the Scrabble website there is an online Scrabble Dictionary word search. Plug in a word you think it exists (this is called "scrabblenogging") and hit the return key and see what it says. If it comes up saying that the word "does not appear in Merriam-Webster's Official SCRABBLE® Players Dictionary, 4th Edition" then that word is unplayable and does not count for points.
And so, that got me thinking. Suppose you have a group of people who are deaf, hard of hearing, hearing and culturally deaf people. One person puts down a long 8 lettered word "deafhood" that nets a good number of Scrabble points but the group challenges the person saying the word doesn't exist. A quick trip to the online Scrabble Dictionary search gets this result:
If this were to be a real Scrabble tournament that word "deafhood" would not be accepted and cannot be counted. The same thing goes for other made up words that might come to your mind. Something like the a-wordism, for example.
Scrabble rules are clear and firm. Let's not be the selfish scrabblenogger and do things "unofficially" when it doesn't count in the real game of Scrabble.
Let your standard dictionary be your friend. When in doubt, always refer to the online Scrabble Dictionary to do the search for you.
11 comments:
*D*eaf here.
Check that one "google" using that one you provided and it is not listed.
I know that it is a definition for it.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/google
So your argument is partially invalid.
Stop bashing at the Deafhood.
Have a good evening
It's not an argument but about a fact and its quite valid since the word "deafhood" is not in the dictionary. According to the rules of Scrabble if the word chosen is not in the dictionary it is not a playable word. Simple as that.
Have a great evening.
Anonymous...
Read carefully. It has to be in THE: Merriam-Webster's Official SCRABBLE® Players Dictionary, 4th Edition.
Words must be in that specific dictionary according to scrabble!
Can't use deafhood, can't use audism or audtist either.
I love scrabble!
Sigh... You forget one thing: Dictionaries are updated periodically. They get updated because people add new terms to their language every year, or month, etc.
I have my 4th Official Scrabble Players Dictionary edition with me... no where does it mention "meep." My, my. how shocking. Guess it's not official enough. But hey, give it time.
As for foreign terms... this one surprised me: Mazel Tov is in that official Scrabble Players Dictionary. So much for keeping foreign terms out of the game.
In other words, Scrabble Players Dictionary will sooner or later incorporate terms you abhor such as the dreaded D word, and *GASP!* the abominable A word! (Audism, just in case you cannot spell it.)
Shel, I didn't forget anything. Didn't you read my earlier blog?
"[b]Every year new words are added into the Oxford dictionary[/b] where words once obscure are now used by millions of people today. OMG! For example, LOL! and meep, are words or acronymns that were very recently added into the Oxford dictionary. Are you following me, yet?"
http://kokonutpundits.blogspot.com/2011/04/meep-omg-lol-scrabblenoggers-aarrrggh.html
And, um, Shel, your 4th Edition Official Scrabble dictionary is the June 2005 print. No new recent words were added to that dictionary since 2005. And they use any updates from the Merriam Webster dictionary and incorporate new words into the Scrabble dictionary. The most recent edition of Merriam Webster dictionary is the 2006 edition.
The Scrabble dictionary is indeed behind. Type in "ringtone" in Merriam Webster search and you'll find definitions of it but use that same word in the Scrabble's dictionary an it'll come up empty.
Those words still remain unplayable until the Official Scrabble dictionary gets updated via Merriam Webster for its new batch of acceptable words. Then we'll see, which I doubt, on whether any new words you mentioned will ever get accepted.
We shall see, Mike, we shall see.
*D*eaf here again,
Oh boy, you pathetic people.
Google isn't listed in Scrabble book and it is unplayable?
It is common-sense that we play words that we *KNOW* that it exists - for example, I put "QUIZ" and we don't need to check if it exists.
We know that the google is here regardless the scrabble book doesn't show it.
I play scrabble almost everyday.
Anony @ 6:30 AM,
Apparently you don't know the rules in Scrabble and you say you play alot? Not likely.
Scrabble rules say words that are spelled with a capital letter cannot be used. You used "Google" which is the name of a company and is designated as so with the capital letter "G."
Don't embarrass yourself by being an extreme scrabblenogger.
Anonymous @ 6:30 AM...
That's cheating!!!
;o)
*D*eaf here again.
Oh geez, you didn't realize that we do use "Google" for the search engine but we do google certain stuff.
It can be used as 'g'oogle instead of 'G'oogle! Look at the best friend of yours and you are going to be surprised.
You are embarrassing yourself.
Cheers!
Ah, now you're clear about it. Yet, that doesn't count using Google research results to see if words exist.
Scrabble rules explicitly state that:
"Players may place any word which can be found in a standard English language dictionary. Official Scrabble dictionaries also can be found in bookstores and online."
Words must match what is found in a standard English language dictionary and not from a Google search result.
Remember, for a Scrabble game to officially count you must follow the rules of Scrabble. Otherwise, you're simply cheating. Until words are officially recognized in a dictionary then you can use them.
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