While I was with my kids, my son asked me to drive to Target and buy a game of Scrabble. I’m not keen on driving in the Bay Area — really not driving anywhere. I’d walk everywhere if I could.
If you were watching the weather, a bomb of a storm was predicted. Fortunately, where we were in Berkeley — it wasn’t hard hit. There was a ton of rain and wind. Some houses were flooded, but we were fine.
Still. I wasn’t excited about driving. I walked to my daughter’s apartment, which is less than two miles from my son’s house. She asked me to walk Waffles the pug while she was at work. I asked if I could borrow her car to go to Target and the grocery store. The answer was “of course.” She left the car keys for me inside her apartment. She’s so close to her job, she doesn’t have to drive.
Scrabble wasn’t at the Target .2 miles from her house where I could walk. I had the choice of two Targets in other towns. I buckled in and found my way with little trouble except for dodging massive potholes — which must have cropped up from the storm. They were tire or car killing potholes. I avoided all but one and felt proud of myself.
Armed with Scrabble and groceries, I returned to my son’s house. He and his fiancee have been playing Scrabble online as of late. I haven’t touched the game since I was around 10 years old?
I played my son who was home alone (and doing very well after surgery FYI.) His first word he laid down was qis — notice there isn’t a u after the q. His word was placed at the center star where you get a gazillion extra points. I challenged the word.
“Look it up,” he said. “Google to see if it’s a word in Scrabble.”
I had my laptop handy and BINGO! Qis is a “yes” for Scrabble.
The next word he played was drat.
“That’s not acceptable. That’s slang!” I said.
“Slang is allowed.”
“Not in my day,” I argued.
Needless to say I lost by more than 100 points. This is not the Scrabble of my childhood.
We both broke out in fits of laughter when he built a new word and it resulted in a second built word “za.”
“You can challenge that if you want,” he said. “I’m not sure za is a word.”
“What do you think it means?” I asked.
He said it was short for pizza — but we were laughing and he admitted he had no clue what it meant or if it was a word.
I checked the laptop. Za is a yes for Scrabble. Short for pizza.
Do you remember slang words in Scrabble? What are your thoughts about what I believe are new rules for Scrabble? Is this the Scrabble of your childhood?
My husband and I play words with friends. This is one case where I like the online better than a physical game, really because my word options open up significantly….
I’ve never heard of words with friends. So it’s an online game?
It’s an app. Love it
I’ll take a look.
I’ll take a look. I did look up the official Scrabble website and qis is an allowed word! They have a dictionary on the Hasbro website.
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Qis is Chinese, not American. In the English language it is an acronym for various companies. Unless agreed on before the game starts, foreign words that are not anglicized are prohibited. There is no anglicized version of QIS per the OED. If your son used it, than he has opened up a can of worms because then ANY foreign word can be used, and since I speak several languages on a conversational level, many of them Slavic, I would throw stuff up there that could clear my plate every time! Sorry, I take my Scrabble very seriously. And no, slang is not allowed as it is subjective. With todays Text Lexicon, I could throw up OMGCUCY and say it is slang for ‘Oh My God, Can’t you see why?’ Or ZZ on a triple word and say it is slang for sleep.
I completely agree with you but there is a Scrabble website that stated what was legal or not. The rules are not the ones I grew up with. I don’t like what the website says is ok. Next time I play with him, I’ll insist on the standard rules I know.
And who authored the Scrabble website? I will stick with the rules on the box, thank you.
I’m with you. I bet the website with allowed Scrabble words was for the online game. I’m home now but I’m going to ask my son to take a picture of the rules on the box and send them to me!
I still like all sorts of board games. I was always pretty good at trivia ones, Scrabble- meh! I have my ups and downs with that one but I don’t take any very seriously. Except maybe poker (which isn’t a board game!) I can be very competitive in what starts as a friendly game of 5 card draw.
I like poker too. I played that growing up with my parents and then with our kids.
I played online scrabble and this one had all sorts of strange words in its dictionary. I’m glad your son is improving.
Thank you. Maybe we were looking at the online words.
You’re welcome.
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I play Words With Friends online too. QIS is a word there. They also allow some other words but don’t give the definitions, which I find a bit shady, unless it helps me!
It was fun to play with the tiles and a board. I haven’t done that forever. That’s funny about the definitions!
Nice quality time with your son. 🙂
It was. Also, because he was doing so well after surgery, I got to spend the last two days hanging out with my daughter, and my son was fine for hours by himself.