Scrabble To Allow Proper Nouns

Hogwash McFly writes "The rules of the popular word game Scrabble are soon to allow proper nouns. Mattel, the maker of the game, hopes the changes made for a new edition, released this July, will 'add a new dimension' to Scrabble and 'introduce an element of popular culture into the game.' With this rule change, the company hopes to target younger fans and families, although they will continue to sell the traditional version where 'Beyonce' and 'Facebook' are not permitted words." Nobody is listening to my suggestion to penalize by one tile any player who has memorized every two-letter English word.

Comments

Hmm

[TheSpoom]

Wouldn't this mean you could claim that any name that has been given to anyone is a valid word?

Re:Hmm

[eln]

That was my thought as well. With all the weird names and alternate spellings people give their kids these days, pretty much any random combination of letters could be successfully argued as being a valid word. Personally, I think I'll stick with the old rules.

Re:Hmm

[WarlockSquire]

just partner with apple, and create an app that tells you whether a word is valid.
why leave it to question when there's money to be made providing the answer?

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, there's appealing to the masses and then there's making it so your product no longer makes any sense. They've obvious chosen the Michael Bay approach.

Re:Hmm

[sortius_nod]

I'm going to start using qwyjibo as often as I can...

Re:Hmm

[Jazz-Masta]

I'm going to start using qwyjibo as often as I can...

Why not, it's a perfectly cromulent word.

Re:Hmm

[somersault]

Crap - no vowels again! Oh well.. I name this table fhzbgyn. That's a 7 letter word, across two triple word scores! Sweet :D

Re:Hmm

[TheRaven64]

The rules that I always used (from a version of the game that's a decade or so older than me) state no foreign words either, which eliminates a number of the words in the official word list. We play with a real dictionary, and if the word isn't in that or is but is marked as a proper noun, then you can't use it. The official word list has contained words that the rules say shouldn't be allowed for a long time.

Re:Hmm

[JDHannan]

it is *NOT* a perfectly cromulent word.  The word is "Kwyjibo"

Embiggen your minds here, people

Re:Hmm

[somersault]

7 is my pet name for 8.

Re:Hmm

[Belial6]

It's worse than that. They don't even have to rationalize that it is the name of a person. They can just make up a short story right there on the spot, and name it with whatever random sting of characters they have, and they have now created a perfectly valid proper noun that is completely within the spirit of the new rules.

E.G.

Zxggrta: The story of a boy playing Scrabble

There once was a boy playing scrabble. He didn't have any real words in his tiles, so he decided to write a short story called "Zxggrta". Since he wrote the story, "Zxggrta" is now a valid word in Scrabble.

The End

Re:Hmm

[EL_mal0]

And, interestingly enough, Kwyjibo is a cromulent proper noun. The Kwyjibo iron oxide-Cu-Au deposit can be found in eastern Canada; here's a map showing its location.

Re:Hmm

[QRDeNameland]

Some decades after a maternity ward Scrabble game:

"Sir, could please give your full name for the court?"

"Qfuhbix Triplewordscore Inyourface Jones"

Re:Hmm

[TheLink]

> Mattel has stepped into a morass that is far deeper than they know.

I doubt these new rules will be used in Scrabble competitions.

And they won't cause big problems to most people who understand the unwritten rules of playing games _socially_.

Basically when people play games socially, people will either agree to play according to a set of rules upfront, or they'll accept what the "house rules" are even if they aren't completely aware of all the "house rules".

The general assumption is that the participants will behave reasonably because:
a) they want to continue playing with each other.
and/or
b) they want to win AND have the other person admit that it was won fair and square - makes the victory sweeter for them :).

So the new rules are only a problem when you are playing with people like that stereotypical nerdy kid who keeps insisting on his really stretched interpretations of AD&D rules[1].

In which case you just don't play with them.

[1] Yes hackers do like stretching/bypassing the limits, but IMO there's not much point "winning" in games/life if nobody wants to play with you.

mhm.

[Pojut]

Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, triple word score. Suck it.

Acronyms

[LordHatrus]

I'm waiting till they start to allow acronyms, so that we geeks can win with our multitude of TLAs.

Re:Acronyms

[hyades1]

FU

Sorry...couldn't resist. I tried. I really tried.

Re:Acronyms

[zach_the_lizard]

You'll have to wait for the SQL. /rimshot

Sigh

[Dyinobal]

So now it's scrabble for idiots. Maybe next we can have Jeopardy change to multiple choice.

Re:Sigh

[dummondwhu]

Not only that, but if people really want to use proper nouns, then what's to stop them currently? Because it's not written on the rules paper? Scrabble is about vocabulary, not about knowledge of popular culture.

Most surprising to me is that I even care, but the more I think about it, the more I do. Come on, Mattel!

Minor correction

[JonStewartMill]

"Mattel, the makers of the game, hope the changes made for a new edition, released this July, will "add a new dimension" to Scrabble and "dumb the game down so it can be enjoyed by a generation of near-illiterates". "

lower-case-f-acebook is a word....

[Anonymous Coward]

But... a facebook is a directory of faces and names for cramming before a social event.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/facebook

And Facebook was named after facebook.

Hasbro and Mattel

[tepples]

For one thing, the article is about the Mattel version. Hasbro sells Scrabble crossword game in the United States and Canada, while arch-rival Mattel controls it everywhere else, so North Americans need not worry. For another, the article states that Mattel is making the proper name rule optional: "It will continue to sell a board with the original rules."

Re:Hasbro and Mattel

[blackraven14250]

OH MY GOD!

Do you seriously mean to say that Americans are going to be the ones that don't have the dumbed-down version of Scrabble???

scrabble to allow LOL and OMG

[OrangeTide]

Now considered part of online and texting culture, Mattel has decided to allow "words" such as LOL, OMG, and BFF.
To play this enhanced game, Mattel hopes to sell new copies of the game worldwide. Also slated for late 2010 is a version with exclamation points and other punctuation.
A Mattel representative presenting the new variants on the classic brand, "We have not decided if you earn points or lose points for excessive punctuation. LOL!!11!"

FTW

[crispi]

1) Change your name via Deed-Poll to the letters left in your rack.
2) Place letters on board
3) ???
4) Profit!

Re:Dumbing things down

[hoggoth]

In related news, Parker Bros is releasing a new edition of RISK that uses a single coin instead of 5 dice. Heads you win, tails you lose.

House Rules

[Baby Duck]

Always play with House Rules

1. 1. No foreign units. Especially not foreign currencies.
2. 2. No "spellings" of "letters". Example: Why is "en" in the Scrabble Dictionary as a "spelling" of the pronounciation of the letter "n" ??!?
3. 3. Despite #2, spellings of Greek letters are allowed (example: "alpha") since they are used in so many disciplines
4. 4. No abbreviations! No to "amp", "ref", "ex", etc. Or while we are at it, "etc" itself.
5. 5. No Old English or Middle English words or spelling variants

Re:House Rules

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is "en" in the Scrabble Dictionary as a "spelling" of the pronounciation of the letter "n"

En and em are both printers' units of measure. That's why they are in the dictionary.

Re:Dumbing things down

[hoggoth]

Comedian: "I just flew in from Chicago... and boy are my arms tired! hahaha"
TheCycoONE: "Given the average mass of a resident of Chicago, and comparing it to the minuscule amount of lift that could be generated from human arms, even with vigorous flapping motions, we can extrapolate the following formulas to show the improbability of this occurrence..."