The highly popular classic Scrabble board game has just had it’s list of acceptable words edited with the addition of over 3,000 extra words added to the list. Many of these words are simply ones which weren’t in there before such as the word “qin”, which is a Chinese musical instrument. But many more of the words are slang terms or names of things, it’s these words which are causing a little more of a stir in the board games industry.
Some of the new slang terms include things like “innit” and “grrl”, a few of the more “name” related terms include ones such as “Facebook”, “MySpace” and “Webzine”. Now, I don’t know about you but when I played Scrabble as young lad the whole point of the game was it helped you to develop your English vocabulary to a better level. The game never allowed names and certainly wouldn’t allow the use of slang, after all why should it, slang words aren’t linguistically correct. So what example is this setting for younger players who once gained an educational benefit from the game?
Many Scrabble players are welcoming the new additions to the list but equally many are also against some of the words which have been added, in most cases it seems it’s not the addition of 3,000 words but more the addition of so many slang words. Nevertheless the new lists will be made available soon.
Personally, I have no problem with them “modernising the Scrabble word list but I do think adding slang/in-proper words to an otherwise educational board game will be a far cry from what the board game stood for originally and won’t be for the better.
