Scrabbling for Words by Vivien Teasdale

In case you haven’t already heard, there’s a new Scrabble game around. On one side, you can play the original version, complete with lonely but aggressive determination to win at all costs. On the other, you play as a team, get helpful hints, challenges that you work through together and win as a group, even though yours may be the only group playing.

My first reaction was: ‘what’s the point?’ Playing the original Scrabble game can help children to learn how to win and how to lose; improve their vocabulary and develop skills in strategy when they realise they can add S to to their opponents ‘Boxer’, thus gaining sixteen points for only one letter.

My second reaction was that today’s youngsters are too afraid of losing to enjoy challenging their friends or family, too bothered about what other people think of them or too afraid that someone will post something derogatory on social media.

And then I thought again. Playing as a team, you learn to work as a team, vital for today’s world. The better players can encourage the younger/slower ones, who will improve their vocabulary along with the game. (I’m not saying what vocabulary, it depends on who is in your team and your relationship with them.)

Competition can be built in – there can be more than one team. As individuals, each successful answer from a member could be rewarded with a point, then tot up the points to see who got the most. But mostly it’s about working together, discussing options, and just having fun without the pressure to excel at anything.

Of course there’s always the Scrabble dictionary, too. The latest one lost many words that may be considered hurtful, but accepted others and as writers we should be keen to keep up and embiggen our vocabulary. You may be pretty good at grawlixing when you’re annoyed, but even your bestie will not feel you are capable of adulting if you are incapable of verbing properly.

This will inevitably make you hangry, so grab a spork, go zoodle a courgette, add it to mofongo to warm you up and finish with a large horchata to cool you down. If you now feel well vibed, indulge in some twerking, video yourself and put it on social media.

Another way to overcome your problem is to seek inspo in the shops, but don’t go hueless. Get totally fangirled about something, be a glamazon and everyone will think you’re adorbs.

A word of warning – don’t go into the grocer’s and ask for marg, nor to a bar for marge. They’ll probably think you’re just a noob.

But is this any different from previous generations? Do any of us get up in the morning and say to our spouse ‘Would you clean out the privie, empty the waste into the wheeled bin, put the vacuum cleaner around the drawing room before tidying up the refrigerator? Meanwhile, I am going to take little Bartholomew on the omnibus into town to meet my friend for luncheon in the public house near the recreation ground.’ You do? Really?

Perhaps we should start a new trend for those of a certain age. How about calling ourselves eruds, lits, veners, or maybe just senescent.

Word List

embiggen - enlarge

grawlixing – $$$*(&&^^%£!

adulting – behaving like an adult

verbing – using nouns as if they were verbs

hangry – angry because hungry

spork – item which is both spoon and fork

zoodle – spirilizer

mofongo – Puerto Recan fried dish

horchata – sweet drink

vibing – feeling like dancing or to transmit vibes of anger, love, confusion etc

inspo - inspiration

hueless - colourless/pale insipid

fangirled – besotted/enthusiastic about something/one

glamazon – tall, confident, glamour girl

adorbs – adorable

marg – (hard G) margarita

marge – (soft g) margarine

noob - inexperienced, newbie

eruds - erudite,

lits - literate,

veners - venerable,

senescent - work it out yourself!