The longer I’m alive, the more I love Scrabble. Whether playing with my family or with good friends, I always have a good time. Plus, it consistently provides me with a good challenge, whether it’s beating an accomplished foe or topping my best personal score.
When it comes to the game, I’m pretty traditional: I don’t like using a dictionary for help and get frustrated when time constraints or a difficult board preclude a correct finish to a game.
So you can imagine my weeping and gnashing of teeth when Mattel officials announced last week that the new version of the game will allow for the use of proper nouns in regular play. This undoes the 80-year-tradition of allowing only common nouns, in addition to words that make up the other parts of speech.
After searching the Mustang Daily’s wire service for a recount of this abomination, I came up empty handed. And since I could not let the occasion pass without putting something in the paper, I was implored by good conscience to write something myself.
And although today some news organizations were reporting that the rule change would only apply to a new ‘Scrabble-like’ game released from Mattel and not Scrabble itself, the problem remains either way.
Mattel officials say the reason for the rule change is to “encourage younger people” to enjoy the game and to increase sales, which are lower than in years past. However, the term ‘younger people’ might as well be replaced with the harsher ‘dumber people.’ Instead of digging deep into intelligences honed by reading and critical thinking, Mattel assumes the youth of today would prefer the cop-out method of naming any proper noun that comes to mind or any product they happen to see lying around the room when playing.
And when I say ‘any proper noun that comes to mind,’ that’s exactly what I mean. As far as what is acceptable, the verdict will lie with the players. Unlike the current rules, which feature official word lists, the most popular being the Tournament Word List (TWL), there will be no official inventory of acceptable people, places or things that count as actual words in the new game.
That means anything will go. It means MTV-crazed tweens could play ‘Snooki’ and ‘Speidi.’ It means my less-Scrabbled friends could play any word she or he sees in the room, like ‘Pepsi,’ ‘Intel’ or ‘Coors.’ Although these words garner small point numbers by themselves, it’s the little things that add up.
Speaking of the little things, it’s sometimes the tiny words that make for big scores. Besides chance, Scrabble is about strategy. My personal method is racking up huge point numbers with small words.
Over the years, I’ve perfected the two-letter-word play, sometimes (often) making three or four words at once, by building a word directly next to another. It’s my answer to my opponents’ bingos (seven-letter words), which give the player an added 50 points (although I’m slowly getting better at those, too).
It took me a long time to learn all the two-letter words; I even have a list taped up by my desk for reinforcing memorization during downtime at work. Sure, enthusiastic Scrabble novices can remember the standard ‘Qi,’ ‘Za,’ and ‘Xi’ to get out of tough spots, but what about the subtler ‘Si,’ ‘Ti,’ ‘Ya’ and the other 94 accepted words (all legitimate common nouns or interjections or verbs), which can add a lot of points to a score, depending on where they’re played.
World-record-holding-Scrabble-scorer Michael Cresta, who went down in history with his game score of 830 points in 2006, also set the record for the highest-scoring word, ‘quixotry,’ for which he earned 365 points. Although chance and smarts more than likely came into play for Cresta’s big move, I’m sure none of it would be possible without a lot of practice. As a player who only breaks 400 once in a blue moon, I can attest to the power of training in perfecting strategy. And to discredit all those years of hard work in favor of easy plays would be a travesty.
Furthermore, the traditional rules have worked for a reason; Scrabble is a science. It was designed around the English language and the number of times of words and letters appear compared to others.
Scrabble was invented by American architect Alfred Butts, who built his own board after carefully figuring out the frequency with which the 26 letters of the English alphabet appear.
Although I can’t speak for him, my guess is that Butts would not be happy with the rule change, if only because of the challenges it poses to the 100-letter tile supply. Certain proper nouns have changed the frequency of certain letters in everyday speech. Of course, all language changes with time, but this is just ridiculous. Who could have anticipated vowel-less band names like “MGMT” or the perhaps acceptable, but ultimately problematic, misspellings like the ones in “Inglourious Basterds?” And what about horrific singer ‘Ke$ha’ and her misspelled hit “Tik Tok,” both of which could be played with the help of a blank tile or two. Through all the language changes, interjection additions and slang shifts, Scrabble has accommodated the English language for nearly a century while keeping the rules fairly constant. But this might be too much to keep up with.
If Scrabble keeps evolving to keep up with all these new nouns, the next thing to change will be the point designations. And I don’t know what I’d do without counting on a 10-point Z or Q at the end of a game to deliver that final blow to my valiant opponent. I can’t imagine a world with 10-point Es or two-point Ks. And I don’t think I’m alone.
So please, Mattel, keep the old rules, and don’t release a dumbed-downed version of my favorite game. This change will set an awful precedent in the already-precarious Scrabble world. And Scrabble lovers, do your part and play the right way. Keep Scrabble a beacon of stability and smartness in our already questionable culture.
Emilie Egger is a history and English senior and Mustang Daily editor-in-chief.