'Grrrrrr – Scrabble ignoramuses, keep your traps shut' blog discussion

Former_MSE_Helen

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's "Grrrrrr – Scrabble ignoramuses, keep your traps shut" Blog.

Please click 'post reply' to discuss below.

tagq2

MSE wrote:

People seem to have an inherent need to interfere in [life].

"Opinions are like..."

Anyway, English is descriptive. If you want to stop a word existing, stop using it. If enough people do that, it goes away. Reality is rarely so malleable.

nzseries1

Martin, I thought you were going to say that you used the word "Grrrrrr" and someone told you that you couldn't... although I can't remember off-hand if there are that many R tiles in the pack

As a scrabble purist, what do you think of the "new" scrabble that changes all the rules? I forget what they call it...

JimmyTheWig

Martin,

If you really take a Scrabble board out with you to a restaurant, surely you've got to expect people to make comments?

...

Would be like, let me see, someone making a comment to a group of people playing Monopoly on a train. Now, who would do a thing like that?

MSE_Martin

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

Martin,

If you really take a Scrabble board out with you to a restaurant, surely you've got to expect people to make comments?

...

Would be like, let me see, someone making a comment to a group of people playing Monopoly on a train. Now, who would do a thing like that?

Yes but my monopoly comment was to help - not to hinder

(I didnt mind him commenting, it was the comment - he was a very nice chap though we had a good laugh with him and his wife)

Mandelbrot

"Please tell me what a ‘normal word’ actually is – a doctor may use zygote in everyday speech, a healer chi and a classist xi."

Well a normal word might be 'classicist' if we were talking about people who use the greek alphabet ...

bargepole

All valid words are in Collins Scrabble Tournament & Club Word List (ISBN-10: 0007258844). If it's in there, you can play it. If it's not, you can't.

This book just lists all the words without definitions, serious Scrabble players couldn't care less what the words mean, it's all about scoring the maximum number of points.

Casual players just can't seem to get their heads round this, hence the inane "normal words" comment.

magyar

MSE_Martin wrote: »

(I didnt mind him commenting, it was the comment - he was a very nice chap though we had a good laugh with him and his wife)

You should come round to ours for a party one day. We put all the car keys into a Scrabble bag and then....

tara747

Speechless!!!!

lardaholics_anonymous

A serious Scrabble player will learn a bunch of high-scoring, short words but may never use them in their normal vocabulary. This is why they get average scores of over 400. Personally, that is too much like work and stops making a game fun.

The equivalent would be me playing five-aside with my mates in the park compared with playing for Manchester City.

bargepole wrote: »

All valid words are in Collins Scrabble Tournament & Club Word List (ISBN-10: 0007258844). If it's in there, you can play it. If it's not, you can't.

This book just lists all the words without definitions, serious Scrabble players couldn't care less what the words mean, it's all about scoring the maximum number of points.

Casual players just can't seem to get their heads round this, hence the inane "normal words" comment.

BobbinAlong

Words are for using, whether it is in speech or written English or even Scrabble. If it's in the dictionary, it's a word so it needs using. What else is a word for??
We learn words from others so keep using them and literally spread the word.