Scrabble Now Allows Names

Found on another blog. Apparently, this isn't actually happening. They are introducing another game in the Scrabble line that will allow this. http://bit.ly/abdzkD

Whew! Thanks for clearing that up, gfxchick. I was about to rage my face off.

That would pretty much open the door to all sorts of wacky words.

There are many ways to play Scrabble; ignoring official rules can result in more interesting (and more educational) variations.

In our home, the "house rules" are that Scrabble will be the "open book, double bag, triple return, blank start and recycle" version. This means that each player starts with a blank, and after it is played as a given letter, anyone with that letter in their rack can play the letter and pick the blank up for reuse (that's the "recycle" part).

The "double bag" refers to the fact that we keep consonants and vowels in separate bags. When you draw your letters you can do so from either bag in whatever proportion best balances your rack. If you get three of something, you can exchange one of them for a different letter. This prevents winding up with the dreaded IUIUCIW-type rack.

The "open book" part is fairly common among recreational Scrabblers. We have not only several dictionaries available, but also a variety of word building books, and sometimes a laptop logged on to an anagramming website.

And finally we spin our racks around to ask the other person for advice/suggestions.

Using these rules, an inlaw and I had a game with 2000+ combined points, including 14 "bingoes." I suppose it's not really "Scrabble" - it's more of a mutual word-puzzle game. But it's fun - especially when the players are also lubricated with their favorite beverages.

So now any dumbass can win at scrabble. Sweet.

Looks like someone from !978 owes ME some Money!!

No need to buy a new game, just use whatever rules you want. Little children and the stupid and the ignorant have been playing that way for decades.

Yeah. No child in my household gets to play scrabble like that. If they can't win by using words like zymurgy and exeat, they should LEARN those words! Bloody fools...I don't care if it's some new version or whatever, it's still idiotic...

One word:

kwyjibo

Thank you, gfxchick, I saw red there for a second.

It's such a flawed game... which is so far /less/ flawed when you used cutthroat rules.

This is CHEATING

We always played by our own rules anyway, we're not purists.

Our house rules are that anything is acceptable so long as it sounds like an actual word, and your explanation is sufficiently entertaining and/or convincing.

Basically the other players agree on whether or not you've adequately entertained them while making your case for a non-word. It makes for some creative and animated storytelling.

I think we had a point deduction for words not in the dictionary, but it's been a while since we played anyway.

I just heard this on CBC, too. Confused...

This is a sign that Scrabble is having its clock cleaned by competitors removing the more draconian rule sets. All it can do is join them.

Scrabulous had a better online app than scrabble did, and others doing electonic knockoffs still do it better.

Then, simpler, lower hassle (easier to carry around, share and score) variations on the concept are doing terribly well. Bananagrams is the fun part of making words with much easier means of scoring. Gone are the prescriptivist rules and bean counting; in comes the creativity and fun.

So, it is probably a good move, and necessary, that Scrabble 'allows' probably the most irritating stricture on gameplay, that of allowing proper Names, which often themselves, have become generic nouns.

Of course, the way some people spell names these days, you might wish that rule was still in place.

Given that there is no restriction, legal or otherwise on what you name children, much less things like boats, this ruling makes anything you put on the board admissible. I hereby christen my new boat ZYQXYJ. But honestly most serious scrabble players that I know tend to play US tournament rules anyway which differ from those that have been printed on the box for years.

cool.