I saw this fun little story in several media outlets today! The Scrabble people have updated their official player’s dictionary and added some new word options.
They run the gamut, from media-inspired (chillax, bromance) to the techie (selfie, hashtag). The 5000-odd new additions also included new additions to the power player’s two-letter word options (‘te,’ a note on the musical scale) and qajak, an Inuit form of ‘kayak’ which is notable for being a Q word which will not require a U.
As with all legal Scrabble words, new additions had to be between two and eight letters, listed in a real dictionary, and not require capitalization or hyphenation. The new additions will add about 40 pages to the paper edition of the dictionary.
I mostly play Scrabble via the iPad app; unless they update it with the new words, I won’t be able to use them. The app—like most people I’ve played with—follows the ‘it must be in the dictionary which is actually here right now’ rule for determining the legality of challenged words!
