The official US Scrabble dictionary has been given its first update in ten years, with 5,000 new words added – but some competitors are less than impressed.
Publisher Merriam-Webster released new editions of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (OSPD), sold in bookshops for casual players, and the Official Tournament and Club Word List (OWL), which governs tournaments in North America and is not available to the general public.
Initially players were excited about widening their scrabble vocabulary with words such as "hashtag", "bromance" and "dubstep". The North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA), which supplies Merriam-Webster with lists of possible additions, told CNN that the new words would bring Scrabble "closer to language as it is currently spoken" and make the game more accessible to younger people.
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"While it's cool that you'll soon be able to play the word 'selfie' against your grandma with the full power of the Scrabble bible on your side, Scrabble enthusiasts are more excited about the inclusion of four two-letter words: 'te', 'da', 'gi' and 'po'," says Laura Entis at Entrepreneur.
Scrabble champion Robin Pollock Daniel explained that the new two-letter words would mean more scoring opportunities. "I call those the amino acids of Scrabble," he told Associated Press. "The more two-letter words we have, the more possibilities a word will fit."
But, writing in FiveThirtyEight, Scrabble player Oliver Roeder says serious players have started noticing errors.
The competitor word list is supposed to be identical to the amateur dictionary, but with the inclusion of offensive or trademarked words. This time it is not, says Roeder. There are also typos such as "disrepects" instead of "disrespects" and "crababble" instead of "crabapple".
Chris Lipe, a former member of NASPA's Dictionary Committee, claims the competitor list now includes some "questionable" words that his committee never intended to be published without further review, yet omits other words from the list they sent to the publisher.
Joel Sherman, a former world Scrabble champion, said he was "disgusted" by the "potential for disruption it has brought to us", while Rebecca Slivka, the director of the Seattle Scrabble Club, described it as a "clusterf**k".
Merriam-Webster's marketing department said: "It is clear that there was some miscommunication on this point which we regret. It is our understanding that the Dictionary Committee is working diligently to ensure all errors are corrected."
Outside the United States and Canada, Scrabble is a trademark of Mattel and official tournaments use Collins Scrabble Words, which is also available online.
Roeder says the biggest issue among competitive players in the US and Canada is a lack of a publicly available electronic version of the new list.
Another Scrabble player, Stefan Fatsis, explains on Slate that there are intellectual property issues over the new competitors word list, with US Scrabble owner Hasbro trying to protect it from being published freely online.
Seattle Scrabble Club's Rebecca Slivka claims: "By doing that, unfortunately, they're really screwing the players."
