New Scrabble rule means that “JOZXYQK” is now technically a valid word

[Ben Paddon]

Proper nouns come into play in Scrabble rule change

Mattel said there would be no hard and fast rule over whether a proper noun was correct or not.

Topic

[hummingbird]

Er, yeah. But ‘jozxyqk’ isn’t a proper noun.

[hummingbird]

‘comment queued for moderation’ …?

[Danny Stephenson]

i think it’s the random assortment of jumbled letters that could have been by the Spam-detector as a bot.

How Ironic!!!

[Phil]

…and that’s how Ben learned what a proper noun was. Or, at least, how he learned what one wasn’t.

[Ben Paddon]

If I named my cat Jozxyqk, then it would be valid.

[Ian Symes]

Another example of Red Dwarf being dated.

[TheLeen]

I don’t think names count as proper nouns, you see.

But anyway. I never got this proper nouns rule anyway. Geographical names, months, days of the week etc. have always been valid words in German scrabble. Of course, all our nouns are capitalised.

[Seb Patrick]

>I don?t think names count as proper nouns, you see.

That is pretty much the definition of a proper noun, though ;-)

[TheLeen]

… pfft.

[hummingbird]

Which means that I can now legitimately use ‘Ix’.

[Blisschick]

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Do you know how many tourneys I could have won with proper nouns???

[Tarka Dal]

> Mattel said there

Somehow allowing the creators of He-Man to dictate the rules of Scrabble doesn’t seem right.

[Blisschick]

>Somehow allowing the creators of He-Man to dictate the rules of Scrabble doesn?t seem right.

This. The upside is now we can use the name Skeletor on the board.

[Seb Patrick]

On the one hand, this notion appalls and disgusts me.

On the other hand… well, look, they’ve only said they’re introducing it for one particular edition (so it’s really akin to things like the “Here and Now” edition of Monopoly – the original still exists), and never in a million years will it be accepted for any sort of official tournament play. I’m jiggered if I’m ever letting myself play a game by anything other than standard “a word has to be in whatever dictionary you have in the house” rules, so it’s not like it’s ever going to affect me. If the intent is to more kids playing word games (although I hardly think it actually WILL), then it can’t be THAT bad a thing.

[TheLeen]

I don?t know whether to laugh or cry. Do you know how many tourneys I could have won with proper nouns???

Of course, your opponents would’ve been allowed to play proper nouns as well.

[Blisschick]

True enough, but I was saying that tongue-in-cheek. I’d usually end up with the person that pulled a word out of thin air that I’d never heard of, but that was several years ago. We used the OSPD (Official Scrabble Players Dictionary aka ‘The Scrabble Bible’), so if it wasn’t in there, it wasn’t playable. I have no idea what the official dictionary is now, but we usually do what Seb does here at home. I’m curious what is going to constitute as a “dictionary” for the new rules.

>On the one hand, this notion appalls and disgusts me.

I wouldn’t say that exactly for myself, but I’m with you…I can’t see playing that way. It creates too many issues with legitimate names, spellings, etc. I probably won’t play it, either. It makes me wonder if they’re going to change the number of each letter available or change the scoring on the board, too.

[hummingbird]

So, do I get a new high score for Eyjafjallajokull?

[Nick R]

Only if you can pronounce it too.

[Author]

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