Blog Name: Fritinancy
Blog URL: http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/
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Post: Why Writers Like Scrabble / 19.01.08
Why Writers Like Scrabble
Judith Thurman writes in this week's New Yorker:
Scrabble is both mindless and cerebral, which may account for its appeal to writers—it gives you a chance to push words around without having to make them mean something.
Exactly.
Thurman's article, "Spreading the Word," is available online only to subscribers (the link above is to a summary, and doesn't at all convey the flavor of Thurman's writing).
There's a certain aptness there (or is it irony?), because the story is mostly about Scrabble's online revival and the copyright battle over Scrabulous, recently reborn as Lexulous.
So you'll have to buy or borrow a copy of the magazine, or subscribe to the digital edition, to read it. Not such a bad idea. Meanwhile, here's a passage I liked so much I copied it for you:
Scrabble is enjoying a second heyday. The first was in the early nineteen-fifties, when demand for sets outstripped production. (In 1954, an advertisement in this magazine showed a wedding party stampeding from a church; the bride explains to the baffled clergyman that the toy shop next door has a new shipment.)
Between one and two million sets are sold yearly; one in every three American households is reported to own one; and thirty thousand new games are said to begin, somewhere in the world, ever hour.
Players of note are a heterogeneous confraternity that includes Barack Obama, the Queen of England, Madonna, Igor Stravinsky, Rosie O'Donnell, Duke Ellington, Nora Ephron, Meadow Soprano, Dustin Hoffman, Justin Timberlake, Chris Martin, Maya Angelou, Carol Burnett, Richard Nixon, and Ludacris, who plays "hip-hop" Scrabble, using words like "crunk," "hizzo," and "pajawa"—a version of the "dirty" Scrabble that was popular with Hollywood swingers fifty years ago.
(I heard one of their ancient jokes at the tournament: "'Cervix' is my favorite opening.'")
Three-quarters of that paragraph is quintessential New Yorker: the scholarly use of statistics, the arcane vocabulary ("confraternity"), the long list, the lavish use of commas and semicolons.
(In his marvelous book The Sound on the Page: Style and Voice in Writing, Ben Yagoda quotes E.B. White, who said the New Yorker was the publication in which "commas ... fall with the precision of knives in a circus act, outlining the victim.")
Then, in the final two sentences, Thurman winks, cracks her knuckles, and talks dirty. Bingo.
Blog Name: Andy's Global View
Blog URL: http://amglobal.blogspot.com/
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Location: Washington, DC, United States
Blog Summary: Andrew Mack is the founder and Principal of AMGlobal Consulting. A seasoned, innovative professional with over 20 years experience in international business and international development. Andrew has worked in some 70 countries around the world with special emphasis on Emerging Markets in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
This blog has been active since: June,2006
Post: Scrabulous, Scrabble, and Economic Development in South Asia /Friday, 25 April
Scrabulous, Scrabble, and Economic Development in South Asia
In February I made my first visit to the Subcontinent, in Delhi, for the regional meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN. In the main hall there were business and government leaders from around the region. At one of the side events an innovative new registry, dot asia, was launched.
Everything about the event spoke of economic dynamism and to me, of the benefit of an economic system – and longer term economic growth – built on a strong foundation of Intellectual Property (IP) rights. But most entrepreneurs in South Asia and other Emerging Markets (EMs) are still not fundamentally interested in the IP debate. They do see themselves as authors, or artists, or techies, but they don’t see themselves as IP entrepreneurs.
Personally I think this is a tremendous missed opportunity, with long-term implications for economic development.
The rolled eyes phenomenon
Of course if you get into a discussion of IP protection, many people will roll their eyes. Issues of IP are seen in the negative, largely defined by our nearly universal dislike – and this seems to be a global phenomenon – of lawyers. Add to this the general skepticism about the functioning of the courts in South Asia – and most people back away from IP.
However, to my eyes the IP protection debate is not about lawyers at all, but about the very entrepreneurs on whom so much hope is placed. I take as an almost frivolous example the case of the brothers from Calcutta that produced Scrabulous...
The Calcutta brothers who made Scrabulous
Now in the interest of full disclosure, I am a big Scrabble fan. I love playing. I have the computer game on my PC, and I play a lot. I know enough of the two letter words and obscure words beginning with Q that few of my friends will even play with me any more.
So you’d think that something like Scrabulous would have real appeal for me. But I think they should close down the program, and the sooner the better.
There are a number of reasons, of course, starting most obviously with the idea the brothers are hawking, which isn’t theirs to sell. The fact that Scrabulous is for fun and not for profit is irrelevant. It’s no different than piracy of any sort. If I write a book, it’s mine to sell, or license, or give away as I see fit.
Next, you have to consider the Scrabulous phenomenon and ask yourself – is Scrabulous really creating any real value for India? True, in the short term there might be some work for a few lawyers and a PR firm or two. But a few billable hours do not an economic powerhouse make…
Plain fun vs economic value
Compare Scrabulous with the original board game. Scrabble (the idea, using IP protection) has provided value for 50 years. The developers licensed the name to Hasbro, and again to Mattel. Money made, taxes paid, employment provided—the seeds of economic growth. From there the game spread around the world, long before the existence of the Internet. Again, people were hired in manufacturing and promotion in different countries. The game entered into the world’s consciousness. It was a good idea, made possible in part because of IP protection.
Scrabulous, on the other hand, will likely be gone within the year. Not much economic value there for India or the world.
There are many in Emerging Markets that get caught up in arguments around the high cost of IP. And its true, some IP – whether music, or film, or software, or whatever – can be costly. However, if we are really focused on building long-term opportunity in Emerging Markets, a short-term focus on the cost of IP misses the point.
I often hear that Bill Gates or Madonna (or in the case of Scrabulous, Hasbro) won't miss a few rupees if their IP is pirated. Maybe so. However, there is something much larger at stake. Emerging Markets entrepreneurs and government officials talk frequently about their desire to promote investment and growth and protect their own IP and CP (cultural property). They decry the lack of available finance for growth, and complain that they don’t get the best and latest goods and products.
From value to development
South Asia, as well as other Emerging Markets, can't seek to create an environment that will promote rapid, information-based, high-skill economic growth while tolerating loose IP standards. Experience shows that you simply can't have it both ways.
Why? They simply won’t attract as much investment in the long term. They won’t have the same ability to retain good talent. They won’t be able to build wealth. They won’t build competitiveness. And they won’t be able to and create alliances with companies that can give them access to global markets.
So, Emerging Markets need to recognize the role that IP protection can play in economic development, from creating employment, to strengthening the middle class, to ensuring economic independence and cultural preservation.
Requisite for the next IP entrepreneur
South Asians need to demand the kind of business environment that will help them thrive, and the improvements to the courts that will help them protect and leverage their country’s good ideas. In the words of Sourabh Gupta, a Washington, DC-based Indian trade and development analyst, they need to build “a body of case law that is pro-innovation and pro-IP protection to help underpin their aspirations of upward mobility.”
It’s not about today’s Bill Gates. It’s about tomorrow’s Bill Gates, the one who might come from India or Bangladesh or any other Emerging Market.
And as Gupta says, the opportunity “will only be as strong as the energies invested by those most materially affected – the vast multitude of small entrepreneurs.”
In the end, if we are truly serious about what we claim to want so badly – investment, jobs, to be taken seriously on the world economic stage, to become economic drivers, not just followers – then we need IP protection.
Because unlike Scrabble, economic development is no game.
Take your broke rack home
Blog Name: So many books, so little time
Blog URL: http://enna-bookmania.blogspot.com/
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Location: Boston : Massachusetts : United States
Blog Summary: I can't go into a used bookstore without buying something.
This blog has been active since: 2007, March
Post: Take your broke rack home / March 6, 2008
Take your broke rack home
I have never really liked Scrabble. But for some reason, when you put it online and give it a catchy new name, I become addicted to it. I refer of course to Scrabulous, the most excellent time-waster I have ever seen. I am really not very good at it, but I usually have at least five games going at once. (I have to draw the line at playing at work though – I would never get anything done!)
Inspired by my new addiction, I decided to finally read a book that I bought a few months ago but hadn’t gotten around to yet – “Word Freak,” by Stefan Fatsis. The author is a Wall Street Journal reporter who decided to devote a year to Scrabble to see if he could become an expert level player.
Fatsis started hanging out with several of the best Scrabble players in the U.S., a motley collection of mostly unemployed, unsocialized young men who spend all of their time memorizing word lists and quizzing each other on anagrams. At first he is somewhat disdainful of all the time they spend on Scrabble, but soon enough he becomes sucked into the crazed world of competitive Scrabble.
These people are not joking around – it’s not unusual to see words like SUQ, ZINCOID, LIAISES and ACAROID appear on the board. Players compile and study lists of the letter combinations most likely to produce bingos (which use all 7 letters on your rack), lists of two letter words, lists of words that include BOAT, etc, etc.
An aside: My most glorious Scrabulous moment so far involves making ZANY with a triple-word score, with the Y hooked onto JAUNT to form JAUNTY. That totaled about 80 points, which is nothing compared to the moves that the elite players make all the time.
Fatsis profiles many of the major players and delves into the history of Scrabble as he relates his personal quest to reach the expert level. The game was invented by architect Alfred Butts in the 1930s and eventually bought by Hasbro (Mattel owns the international rights).
Both companies have been making quite a fuss over the huge popularity of Scrabulous and are threatening to shut it down. In my opinion, that would just alienate all of the new Scrabble fans (like me!), which seems like a marketing fiasco. Hopefully they can come up with some kind of agreement… I’m optimistic that it hasn’t been shut down yet :)
Btw the title of this post comes from this fantastic song, “Scrabulous,” a parody of “Glamorous,” passed on to me by Mimi37 (who always beats me at Scrabulous! Grrrr). My favorite line: “If you ain’t got no vowels take your broke rack home.”
Blog Name: Angry African
Blog URL: http://angryafrican.wordpress.com
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Location: South Africa
Blog Summary: Angry African on the Loose
This blog has been active since: December 2007
Post: Make It Better: Scrabulous - Can someone shoot the lawyers please / March 2, 2008
Make It Better: Scrabulous - Can someone shoot the lawyers please
I have to confess that I went through a phase of addiction. To Scrabulous on Facebook. I played it with my friends in Australia, and with my wife sitting across me in the lounge. I now have it under control. I only have about 2 games going at the same time and only play at night. Now it seems as if this will be taken away.
By Mattel and Hasbro - the owners of Scrabble. And, surprise, surprise, the fight is being led by the corporate lawyers.
I am not surprised that the lawyers are heading this up. They’ll take any case if they can smell that they might win. I guess it comes from losing so often. And corporate lawyers are especially pathetic. Couldn’t make it in the courtroom or on their own. So decided to be the ‘fact-checker’ that cross the t’s and dot the i’s. Boy, do I have a special dislike for them.
They have been at the heart of almost every failure that I have worked on. Mind you, not failure because of our work or advice. But failure because they didn’t agree with our way or our advice. Let me give you a classic example.
I worked with a large company that was the target of a major trademark campaign by activists and an African government. Our advice? Just agree to sign the agreement they want you to sign. Yes, you might have a legal case, but most of these cases have nothing to do with whether you are legally right or wrong.
Being legally right does not equal morally right. Legal justice does not mean doing what is just. The campaigners will just argue that the system is in favor of ‘Big Business’ and that the little guys always get the short end of the stick. It’s a ‘no win’ for the company.
And, most importantly, you can’t win a popularity contest with a respectable campaigning non-profit or an African country. Everyone got this, except the lawyers. They argued that it could set a precedent. That it might (yes might) hurt the company - they were wrong. So the company continued to fight the legal case.
And we continued to argue that they need to just sign the bloody agreement - their well earned reputation was getting hammered. We eventually told them that they WILL sign an agreement. Not because we say so, but that was just the way it works out in the end in these campaigns - hey, I headed up a few campaigns while at Oxfam.
It dragged out for more than a year. The company got hammered. Their reputation was shot. The end result? They agreed to sign the agreement…
I continue to fight the corporate lawyers at every turn. We argue - just be transparent and tell people everything. The lawyers? No, can’t do that - too risky. (I bet you that the tobacco industry got the same advice from their lawyers from day one). We argue - sign an agreement with the local community that you will respect their rights.
The lawyers? No, can’t do that - too risky. We argue - be open at the board level about pay. The lawyers? No, can’t do that - too risky. At every turn we bump into them. This roadblock stopping all progress. And the end result? The lawyers are wrong, the company’s reputation is damaged, and we look like asses for being right.
Why could the lawyers not be told to shut the hell up and let the ‘money makers’ in the company run things. I have had two CEO’s tell the lawyers to stop telling him what he can’t do and rather help him make things possible. Instead of stopping things from happening, make sure that every legal angle is covered to make things happen. Be part of progress, don’t stop it. And in both cases the company benefited from the result. Better relations, more respected brands, and innovative changes.
What should Hasbro and Mattel have done? Tell the lawyers to shut the hell up. And ask the marketing people to speak to the developers about getting their name attached to Scrabulous. Imagine - 500,000 free hits every single day.
Free advertising on one of the most popular social networks available. Instead? 500,000 potential campaigners against Hasbro and Mattel. Instead of free advertising and potential clients? Free dislike and loss of clients. I for one won’t be replacing my Scrabble game soon. And won’t buy the game for my friends as I was planning on doing. And I blame the corporate lawyers for that.
Can someone just shoot the corporate lawyers so we can start making some money and enjoy a better life.
Scrabble, Controlling Authority
Blog Name: Controlling Authority
Blog URL: http://controllingauthority.wordpress.com/
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Blog Summary: A legal Studies blog
This blog has been active since: Jan, 2008
Post: Scrabble / March 2, 2008
Scrabble
Hasbro and Mattel claim that on-line Scrabble is piracy. I guess a lot of people are playing it on Facebook where it is called Scrabulous but the rules and points are exactly the same. As many of you know, I play at www.isc.ro, I just checked my stats and I have played 1,641 games over about 4 years.
Both the sites are hosted on servers outside the U.S. Scrabulous in India and ISC in Romania. This makes it more difficult/impossible for Hasbro and Mattel to shut them down.
NoObamaKoolAid is going to love my suggestion to the companies: get the domain scrabble.com and start making money. Make the site really fun and easy to use. Let people play free if they are willing to look at ads but allow them to buy a membership that would allow them to play without being bothered by ads.
Give one player name free and let them buy more if they want. In short, build a better website where people can play scrabble and people will come. Why don’t they even try?
I am confident about my site in Romania staying up, but they could force the hand of facebook pretty easily. Or, license it to facebook for a fee. Facebook is making plenty of dough. I’m just saying people want to play scrabble, isn’t that good for the company? They just have to figure out how to get them to play on their website versus others.
Scrabble goes Web 2.0
Blog Name: RHetoric
Blog URL: http://www.rhstrategic.com/blog/
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Blog Summary: Welcome to RHetoric, the blog of RH Strategic. We are a communications firm that offers a powerful combination of strategy & planning, marketing, public relations, and design services. In this blog our team discusses the influence of communication in our lives and specifically within technology, healthcare, and the public sector.
This blog has been active since: Nov, 2007
Post: Scrabble goes Web 2.0—Sort of / 18.02.2008
Scrabble goes Web 2.0—Sort of
I have a new obsession: Scrabulous. This free online game of Scrabble is entirely addictive (so beware), and the digitalization offers some key benefits that are nearly enough to turn a card-carrying board game lover away permanently.
Just imagine, a world in which you don’t have to keep up that annoying tally of the score or multiply for your triple-word scores-Scrabulous keeps a running total for you. And there is always a rogue Scrabble player who tries to play a questionable word (”Regioned,” the supposed past-tense of dividing an area into “regions” was one of my past attempts). Scrabulous nips those quasi-words in the bud with a pop-up “invalid word.”
Of course, if you are going to play Scrabulous, you better act quickly. Hasbro, the maker of the board game Scrabble, has sent the Scrabulous inventors a “cease and desist” order for copyright infringement. But Scrabulous has earned a bevy of supporters-more than 610,000 on Facebook alone; and “Save Scrabulous” groups are popping up all over the place. There is even a highly amusing satirical version of Fergie’s “Glamorous” in support of the game on YouTube.
No matter what happens to Scrabulous, this raises an important issue for Hasbro-why didn’t they think of this? This free, digital version of Scrabble is raking in a younger audience of players, and reviving those, like me, who enjoy conjuring up memories of the board game version but love the perks of online play. The Scrabulous inventors, India-based brothers Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, are now earning $25,000 a month from advertisers, a number that could easily increase with the popularity of the game.
Perhaps Hasbro would be best served to reach an agreement with the Agarwallas, since $19.95 for Hasbro’s online Scrabble Blast is just too much to pay when it’s available for free. Hasbro may just find it is better off getting on board with the freeware system, before users get off-board with Scrabble altogether.
Blog Name: Marketing in the Digital Age
Blog URL: http://teqtonic.blogspot.com/
RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TeqtonicBlog
Location: London, United Kingdom
Blog Summary: The Teqtonic Blog
This blog has been active since: 2007, Feb
Post: Scrabble, Scrabulous and Facebook /15 February 2008
Scrabble, Scrabulous and Facebook
It has amazed me that Hasbro and Mattel have demanded the removal of Scrabulous, the online Scrabble application, from Facebook. Scrabulous was a social marketer's dream; many agencies spend endless hours developing Facebook applications hoping to catch a big social media wave, but very few ever make it. The "stars" reach more than 500,000 active users. Scrabulous was one of that elite group; it reached over 650,000.
So, given that Scrabulous was effectively a social marketing campaign to die for, why did Hasbro and Mattel ban it? Their lawyers have argued copyright was being infringed. Executives at these leading toy companies probably felt that players playing Scrabulous would dent or damage sales of the original Scrabble board game.
Let's not forget that before all this happened, Scrabble was a tired brand. It was a fifties product owned by an over fifties audience. It needed a shot in the arm. I can just imagine the agency brainstorm convened to resurrect the brand. It might go something like this:
Q. What's the business problem?
A. Sales are going down
Q. Why?
A. Scrabble is getting old. The players who bought it in the 60's and 70's are either dead or in retirement.
Q. What shall we do?
A. Let's attract a new, younger audience and show them what fun Scrabble can be.
Q. How do we do that?
A. Well younger and educated audiences are piling into social networking sites like Facebook. Ideally we'd have an effective social marketing campaign on Facebook.
Playing the Facebook application would raise both awareness and consideration of the traditional board game amongst those consumers who'd either forgotten about it and even those who'd never heard of it. There's a very good chance that with the game back on peoples' radar screens and shopping lists, sales would have increased.
It's worth observing that Scrabble has been the beneficiary of outstanding good fortune before. Launch sales back in the 1950's were initially sluggish until the Chairman of Macy's noticed that the store didn't stock the game and placed a bulk order in 1952. Sales then took off. Scrabulous was a chance of similar magnitude.
The Scrabulous Facebook application was one of the best free gifts ever given to a brand. After all, what other ways are there to reach that highly elusive younger and educated target audience free of charge and with such potent credibility? It could have been Scrabble's second coming.
Blog Name: Order from Chaos
Blog URL: http://braveastronaut.blogspot.com/
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Location: Cheverly, MD, United States
Blog Summary: An opportunity to comment on a life very full, with room for improvement, and little time to do it.
This blog has been active since: September, 2006
Post: QWERTY is a valid Scrabble Word / February 07, 2008
QWERTY is a valid Scrabble Word
I have previously mentioned my "addiction" to Scrabble and it's new Facebook knock-off, Scrabulous, which is in danger of being killed by Facebook, as it evidently might be an infringement of Hasbro's rights. But I digress. Qwerty refers to the common computer keyboard. Look up there in the left hand corner.
Further, your keyboard may have dots or raised lines on the "F" and the "J" keys. They are part of the home keys (A-S-D-F for the left hand, J-K-L-; for the right hand). I took typing in both junior high school and high school. I was miserable as I had already learned to type myself.
For the longest time, I used to have to look at the keyboard to make sure I was pushing the right keys. Now, I can pretty much look at the screen to see if things are correct. The backspace and the delete keys are still very much used in my world. Computers have made that so much easier.
So what's my point? I could go on about how secretaries are becoming less utile and more of a status symbol for executives as "typing" becomes easier and there are fewer occasions when someone needs to be asked to "take a memo."
Or I could argue that the art of hand writing is rapidly becoming a lost art, but that is a blog post for a different day, as I could go on about that for some time. I really just wanted to show off this site I found, again courtesy of one of my most favorite sites on the web, kottke.org. T
he site has let me know that I can type between 35-45 words per minute. It tracks errors and tells you how fast you type. It's kinda cool.
Blog Name: Love It A Lot
Blog URL: http://loveitalot.blogspot.com/
RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LoveItALot
Location:
Blog Summary:At Love It A Lot, it's pretty self-explanatory. We love things. We love things a lot. We love shopping and blogs and we really love shopping blogs. We wanted our own shopping blog to show you the things we love. Won't you please love the things we show you?
This blog has been active since: Feb, 2007
Post:Scrabulicious / February 06, 2008
Scrabulicious
With Scrabulous proving to be the best thing to happen to facebook, I think it's only fitting that I draw your attention to this lovely Chocolate Scrabble bar by Mary & Matt.
It's delicious AND fun... my two favorite adjectives.
(Some might say it's also educational)
Blog Name: Mathew Browne
Blog URL:http://www.mathewbrowne.com/
RSS Feed:http://feeds.feedburner.com/mathewbrowne
Location:London
Blog Summary: I'm Mathew Browne, a Welsh web designer currently living in London. I have a job at University College London in web development; I also run MB Web Design, a web design and SEO company.
This blog has been active since: September 2005
Post:Scrabble tips to make your opponent hate you / May 27th, 2007
Scrabble tips to make your opponent hate you
Having good luck and a decent vocabulary might be enough to win you a game of Scrabble, but what if you’re against a particularly formidable opponent, or a relative you really don’t like and would like to wipe the floor with? Fortune and anagrammatical skills will only get you so far; here are my top three tips for really sticking it to your opponent.
#3 - Use a word that looks mis-spelt
Here’s a short list of perfectly valid Scrabble words, but which your opponent will presume you’ve spelt incorrectly. They, of course, will challenge you and reach for the Scrabble dictionary. You, on the other hand, will sit back smugly, knowing that you’ve just earnt yourself an extra turn. Of course, try this trick more than once and your opponent will call your bluff and allow all of your weird words through, unchallenged. This, in turn, will give you the chance to use bogus words like cromulent, embiggens and kwyjibo.
There are piles of words in the Scrabble , that fit the description; these are just a few examples.
AMUCK APATITE ASBESTUS ASPERATE COALA CHICKORY CIGARET CUNDUM CUTLAS CYDER DORNOCK DROWND FANTOM GALIVANT GOODBY GREWSOME JALOPY KREEP KULTUR KUMQUAT MUSTACHE PEEPUL PENCEL PENSIL RABBET SKEEING SYCOSIS
#2 - “Q” words without the “U”
So you’ve picked up the dreaded Q tile, but no matter how many tiles you get rid of, you just can’t pick up the U. It doesn’t have to be the end of the world, there are plenty of words you can use without a U following the Q. Just don’t expect me to tell you what these words mean.
* 2-letter Words - QI
* 3-letter Words - QAT QIS SUQ
* 4-letter Words - QADI QAID QATS QOPH SUQS WAQF
* 5-letter Words - BURQA FAQIR NIQAB QADIS QAIDS QIBLA QOPHS QORMA TALAQ TRANQ UMIAQ WAQFS
* 6-letter Words - BURQAS BUQSHA FAQIRS NIQABS QABALA QANATS QASIDA QAWWAL QIBLAS QIGONG QINDAR QINTAR QIVIUT QORMAS QWERTY SHEQEL TALAQS TRANQS UMIAQS YAQONA
* 7-letter Words - BUQSHAS INQILAB QABALAH QABALAS QASIDAS QAWWALI QAWWALS QIGONGS QINDARS QINTARS QIVIUTS QWERTYS SHEQELS TSADDIQ TZADDIQ YAQONAS
* 8-Letter Words - INQILABS MBAQANGA MUQADDAM QABALAHS QAIMAQAM QALAMDAN QAWWALIS QINDARKA QWERTIES SHEQALIM TSADDIQS TZADDIQS
* 9-letter Words - MBAQANGAS MUQADDAMS QABALISM QABALIST QAIMAQAMS QALAMDANS QINGHAOSU TSADDIQIM TZADDIQIM
#1 - Know all of those annoying 2-letter words
What’s better than annoying the hell of of your opponent by using a series of words like xu, zo and aa? Knowing what they mean, too. Trust me, it drives people crazy. Here’s a list of the two-letter words which either appear in the American or International English versions of the Scrabble dictionary. You can check here.
* AA - rough jagged lava found in Hawaiian volcanos
* AB - an abdominal muscle
* AD - short form of advertisement
* AE - one (Scots.)
* AG - agriculture
* AH - (verb) to say “Ah” for joy etc
* AI - a three-toed South American sloth
* AL - an East Indian tree
* AM - a present tense of the verb be -
* AN - a form of the indefinite article
* AR - the letter “R”
* AS - to that extent
* AT - in the position of
* AW - exclamation of disappointment
* AX - (verb) to work on with an axe
* AY - an affirmative vote (also AYE)
* BA - the eternal spirit in Egyptian mythology
* BE - (verb) to exist
* BI - a bisexual person
* BO - Amer. slang for friend
* BY - near; a side issue (pl. BYS)
* CH - English dial. for I
* DA - a Burmese heavy knife
* DE - preposition meaning of or from, in names
* DI - a plural of deus (a god)
* DO - (verb) to achieve; a celebration (pl. DOS)
* EA - a river (dial.)
* ED - education
* EE - Scots. dial. for eye (pl. EEN)
* EF - the letter “F”
* EH - (verb) to say “Eh” for surprise etc
* EL - an elevated railway
* EM - a printer’s measure
* EN - a printer’s measure, half of an EM
* ER - an expression of hesitation
* ES - the letter “S”
* ET - a past tense of eat
* EX - the letter “X”
* FA - a musical note
* FE - a Hebrew letter
* FY - an interj. expressing disgust (also FIE)
* GI - a judo or karate costume
* GO - (verb) to depart; a Japanese board game (pl. GOS)
* GU - a simple violin used in Shetland (also GJU, GUE)
* HA - an exclamation of surprise
* HE - a male
* HI - an exclamation of greeting
* HM - interj. expressing thoughtful consideration
* HO - interj. calling attention
* ID - part of the psyche
* IF - a condition
* IN - (verb) to harvest
* IO - a cry of joy
* IS - a present tense of be
* IT - impersonal pronoun
* JA - yes
* JO - a sweetheart
* KA - (verb) to serve (also KAE)
* KI - the spirit of Japanese martial art, see QI
* KO - a Maori digging stick
* KY - cows (also KYE)
* LA - a musical note
* LI - a Chinese distance unit
* LO - look, behold
* MA - mother
* ME - a musical note (also MI)
* MI - same as ME, above
* MM - exclamation of satisfaction
* MO - a moment
* MU - a Greek letter
* MY - belonging to me
* NA - interjction of disbelief
* NE - arch. form of not
* NO - a no vote (pl. also NOES)
* NU - a Greek letter
* NY - (verb) to approach (pl. also NYS)
* OB - an objection
* OD - a mystic universal force
* OE - a grandchild in Scotland (also OY, OYE)
* OF - belonging to
* OH - (verb) to exclaim “Oh” for surprise
* OI - interj. calling attention
* OM - a syllable intoned as part of a mantra
* ON - to go on
* OO - wool (Scots.)
* OP - an abstract art style
* OR - the heraldic colour gold
* OS - a bone
* OU - a bloke
* OW - interj. expressing pain
* OX - a mammal with hooves
* OY - same as OE, above
* PA - father
* PE - a Hebrew letter (also PEH)
* PI - (verb) to jumble or disorder (pr.p. PIEING, PIING)
* PO - a chamber pot
* QI - a Chinese life force
* RE - a musical note
* SH - interj. requesting silence
* SI - a musical note
* SO - a musical note (also SOH)
* ST - an exclamation of impatience
* TA - thanks
* TE - a musical note
* TI - a small tree
* TO - as far as
* UG - (verb) to cause hatred
* UH - interj. expressing disbelief
* UM - interj. of hesitation
* UN - one
* UP - (verb) to increase
* UR - interj. expressing hesitation
* US - a third person pronoun
* UT - a musical note
* WE - a third person pronoun
* WO - a curse
* XI - a Greek letter
* XU - a Vietnamese coin (pl. XU)
* YA - you
* YE - you
* YO - a call for effort
* YU - precious jade
* ZA - contraction of “pizza”
* ZO - a Himalayan cross between a yak and a cow (also DZO, DSO, ZHO, DZHO)
Blog Name: Fascinating Inner Thoughts of Jay
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Post: Kwyjibo/February 04, 2008
Kwyjibo
So I have this gnawing suspicion that some of the people I'm in mortal Scrabulous battle with are cheating, asking the Anagram-o-matic 3000 for help. My games are littered with words, "words," like YTTRIA or ZARF or ABA or TMESIS. Tmesis? "Separation of parts of a compound word by one or more intervening words." You don't come across that word unless you're truly mining the Scrabble Dictionary.
And there's the matter of the board: most people's Scrabble games look like one of those elementary-school crossword puzzles, mostly four and five-letter words sprawled across the board, intersecting over a single letter. But experienced players, guys ━ or robots ━ with the all the three-letter words memorized play out a game with big old blocks of letters, two by two, three by three, sometimes even four by four. Lots of words at once, that's how you score the big points.
I've never cheated at Scrabble. Well, that's not exactly true, and I can understand the motivation behind taking a second to get that anagram list, pre-organized by score for you. I've never cheated playing with a human opponent, but I haven't been quite as honest against the computer.
I get a rack that's bad but not horrible, I'm sure there's a decent word in there somewhere but it's late and I don't want to re-arrange six vowels in my head. I ask for a hint, which is the stupidest, biggest waste-of-time thing you can possibly do with your computer.
Because now you're just watching the computer play against itself, which is exactly why you're wasting five minutes playing Scrabulous in the first place. Like you'd sit in front of Tetris while the game shifts and rotates the pieces, "It's on level twelve! Damn, the computer's good!"
What's interesting is that my Scrabulous-cheating friends, or my alleged Scrabulous-cheating friends, suck at it. Turn after turn, it's the same characteristics: a high-scoring word no one's ever heard of, crossing a bunch of other words. Some letter combination that never appears in the English language (DJINN), or a word that's all diphthongs (AIOLI). It would be a different game if you had to define your word before you played it.
I hear "it" ━ winning ━ is addictive. Winning with a few electronic steroids running through your system is still probably more satisfying than losing honestly. Well, not so much for the other person, I suppose.
Blog Name: Latest Homes
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Post: Andrew Kay scrabbles to mince his words/ 16.01.2008
Andrew Kay scrabbles to mince his words
I’m not sure I can face Facebook for much longer. Yes, it is nice to be in touch, but does it have to come with so much claptrap. Managing Facebook could become a full-time occupation, precluding any actual social intercourse in favour of the sanitised world of the web.
One thing it has done for me is given me yet one more vice with which I have to battle. Whilst others struggle with their own demons of drugs and drink, I am now struggling withy the addictive nature of an online game.
Yes, my name is Andrew and I am addicted to Scrabulous.
I have of course been addicted to Scrabble since childhood. Anyone who loves words loves Scrabble. Mum and dad played, and as a teenager, so did I. In my thirties I rediscovered it but also found that there were fewer people prepared to play.
One or two are put off by the competitive way I play.
I’m unconvinced about uncompetitive game playing – sports days where no one is a winner or a loser. Surely we are preparing kids for a very unreal future.
‘‘I’m unconvinced about un-competitive games. Surely we are preparing kids for an unreal future’’
Anyway, Facebook introduced me to Scrabulous and now I am hooked. I play morning and evening, often turning off John Humphries in favour of a game. At that time of day you can be playing someone in Mumbai or New Orleans, it’s a strange timeless world, and one filled with equally addicted word geeks.
Scrabulous gives you a rating too, which means that people can decide whether to play you or not. It can be quite upsetting being rejected at 7am by a stranger in the subcontinent on the grounds that your rating is too high or too low. My rating is quite high but not astronomical, which means that I get a fair amount of rejection from the very good and from the not very good. Being pretty good is a lonely place on planet Scrabulous.
I also have problems with the way the game is played. By that I mean that as yet I have not got to grips with either the formats or the rules of play. Words that I have used for years are rejected and words that I dismiss as slang crop up as acceptable. It’s all very confusing.
This morning I was alarmed to find someone using a word that I would hesitate to play, quite brazenly. I will not even print it here, but there it sat, unashamedly in the middle of the board having been electronically accepted. I blushed, then pressed on.
Will Scrabulous lower my standards? I hope not, although if you can play that sort of word I might have to if I am to retain my rating. What a dilemma I face – to swear or not to swear?
That is the question.
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Post: The Owners of Scrabble Are None Too Happy With The Success of Facebook's Scrabulous / 16.01.2008
The Owners of Scrabble Are None Too Happy With The Success of Facebook's Scrabulous
With 260,000 players on weekdays and about double that number on weekends, the Facebook version of Scrabble--called Scrabulous, is a huge success. Unfortunately, Scrabble's owners, Hasbro and Mattel aren't seeing a dime of it.
In legal circles that's called copyright infringement.
The application was developed in Calcutta, India, by software developers Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla and launched at the end of June. They have a website version, as well as a Facebook portal. The Facebook portal allows users of the social networking site to play with their friends and others in the network.
The software developers say they placed their version of Scrabble on Facebook after approaching Hasbro (which owns the rights to the game in the US and Canada) and received no response.
Isn't that kind of like knocking on the door of a house, and, if the owners don't answer you walk in and make yourself at home?
According to Brand Republic, initially the pair said that they were targeting just a few thousand users, but within weeks the Scrabulous application had 20,000 users and was growing fast and making the pair around $20,000 a month.
The folks at Mashable explain the game this way:
For anyone that loves to play Scrabble, this application lets you do it your way. There are options to play with other users that aren’t even online. This way, you can let your Scrabble game go on forever. Well, maybe not forever, but at least you can play when you want to play.
Once you’ve added Scrabulous, you can choose to host a game, start a game with a friend, see who’s online now, find a friend that’s currently playing, or join a table.
Now Hasbro has responded jointly with Mattel, which owns the rights to the board game internationally, and asked the applications be pulled.
The addictive quality of the game is explained by the folks at LifeClever:
"I have a confession. The reason why you’ve heard barely a peep from me isn't because I’ve been Tasered by zealous cops or abducted by aliens. Truth is, I've been fiendishly playing Scrabble Scrabulous on Facebook. I swear, it's like a Krispy Kreme donut with sprinkles of crack on top.
"After its integration with Facebook, Scrabulous is now delightful, convenient, and sticky. It's a great example of how to take a classic standalone product and turn it into an online service that connects emotionally and deeply with people.
Is Scrabulous boosting Scrabble?
Blog Name: just a smith
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Post: Is Scrabulous boosting Scrabble? / 15.01.2008
Is Scrabulous boosting Scrabble?
As has been noted on TechCrunch and other places, Hasbro is working to shutdown Scrabulous, one of the most popular Facebook applications. While Scrabulous is certainly a Scrabble clone, the former is likely giving a significant boost to the latter.
Looking at Google Trends, one can see a significant recent uptick in search activity for Scrabble which occurs concurrently with the appearance of Scrabulous.
Scrabulous appears to be greatly boosting Scrabble itself, as there is no other news which could explain this uptick. Hasbro is therefore incredibly stupid to try and shut it down.
As means of disclaimer, I am an unapologetic Scrabulous fan (addict?). It has been years since I’ve played any Scrabble, and if Hasbro makes Scrabulous go away, I am much less likely to purchase a Scrabble board.
I don’t say that as a threat, but because Scrabulous certainly has enhanced awareness of Scrabble to me. If Scrabulous goes away, then that awareness will go away. I’m certain this is true for many, many others (to put it mildly).
Please Save Scrabulous
Blog Name: the Fluff and the Mediocrity
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Post: Please Save Scrabulous / 13.01.2008
Please Save Scrabulous
Those of you that know me, know that I am in law school to become an IP attorney, so its kind of with mixed feelings that I write about this. I really enjoy playing Scrabble, I really enjoy playing it on Facebook using the application Scrabulous, so it was with a lot of sadness that I read about Hasbro is attempting to shut down Scrabulous.
The site which lauched in 2006, started their Facebook application in June 2007 and is now in the top 10 applications on Facebook with 569,000 daily active users and 70 million page views last month.
Fortune blogger, Josh Quittner, suggesting starting a Facebook group to save it, but TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld pointed out how that didn’t work for Business 2.0.
As I write this there is no petition group that I could find, but that may change, I may start one, because I really love the app, and I’d hate to see it go away, even if that probably won’t work.
There are of course other places to play Scrabble online, including the Internet Scrabble Club, but the great part about Scrabulous is that you can play it with anyone on Facebook without really leaving that site that you already visit anyway, who wants to sign up for yet another service(different than another app) just to play a game that your friends may not sign up if its detached from Facebook.
I mean look at the success of the app versus all the sites that have it already(including Yahoo’s slightly modified version).
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Post: Hasbro Tries To Shut Down Scrabulous / 11.01.2008
Hasbro Tries To Shut Down Scrabulous
“Is Hasbro just a stupid Potato Head? Or is this a brilliant game of Stratego?” That’s the big question Fortune’s Josh Quittner (my former boss) asks as he reports that Hasbro, the toy company that owns Scrabble, is trying to shut down Scrabulous,
one of the most popular Facebook apps.
Scrabulous lets you play an online version of Scrabble with your Facebook friends. The app boasts 569,000 daily active user, ranking it No. 9 right after Slide’s SuperPoke, No. 8, and ahead of iLike, No. 10.
Scrabulous co-founder Jayant Agarwalla, 21, confirms that Hasbro “sent a notice to Facebook about two weeks ago. The lawyers are working on it.”
Quittner suggests that someone start a Facebook group to save Scrabulous, but we all know how much good that is likely to do.
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