Subject: Us and Them and a FOO
Date: Sunday, September 28, 1997 9:04PM

On Sun, 28 Sep 1997, Jim Miller wrote: 

 I think a worthwhile project would be to go through these lists to determine
 how many of the words can be found in an unabridged-level North American

 ...

 Looking at all these factors could give a rough idea of the
 inappropriateness of a word for North American play.  If a word is found

This sounds more like a worthwhile exercise in balkanization for the separatist factions. Those that would like to see a combined dictionary are fully aware of the differences in editing between the North American and British lexica. The point is that there cannot be a unified word source with members of one continent telling members of the other, "you have to unlearn n-thousand words you've been using for the last decade because ... " Do you really believe that they would consent to this? The question of the British word source was determined by the British. Tho I certainly might've voted for another route had I been a part of a British DC so many years ago, I wasn't, and it's a done deal.

As a member of the North American Dictionary Committee, I kicked and screamed on behalf of the members over the loss of 6 words in the forthcoming TWL 98. What do you think the Brit's reaction will be to a full-scale proctoscopy and disboweling of their dictionary of choice? There will never be unity under those circumstances.

If you think unity is a good thing, you must accept the right of the British to determine their contribution to a combined dictionary.

I urge everyone to overcome their feelings of uneasiness with the "alien" word source in the interests of fostering a unified platform for World English Scrabble. To help pave the road, I present the following list of FOO (Frequently Offered Objections) with the corresponding affirmation to assist you in making the decision to step forward:

  • "EUOUAE isn't a word"

    - You haven't partied with Mark Nyman.

  • "What do I care about international issues, I'm never going to play in the World Championships"

    - Surely, you would like to see a sound method for determining the champion of your favorite game. An entire continent handicapped by dictionary isolationism will have a hard time fielding representitives you can wroot for.

  • "First KA took BETSY, then they added the F. Now I gotta remember M and W. When does it end?"

    - Like any competitive activity, Scrabble requires WORK. SOWPODS will not change this. Your current competitive ability is a function of the effort you have put into improving your game. No one has yet learned the OSPD on the first pass. The players that choose to study and improve themselves will still pass the players who choose not to. Did you think you were done studying forever? If anything, it should at least freshen up the experience.

    PS: BETTY MEETS WES, YET MY WIFE'S BEEF STEW WETS FEW WEBFEET Simple an elegant, no? No charge.

  • "I don't have enough room in my brain for 20,000 new words"

    - Did you learn all the OSPD 100,000 ? I certainly don't know them all. I have been able to maintain expert status not by knowing the words but by playing smart. Paradoxical as it sounds, an influx of new words would actually provide further opportunities to win games by playing smart Scrabble.

  • "An influx of new words will destroy the strategic beauty of the game."

    - Au contraire! I have seen so many games decided by an early bingo and a closed board, it makes you wonder why there are even 100 tiles. Dynamic open games provide many more opportunities to outsmart your opponent. Top players who have played any amount of SOWPODS are unanimous on this.

  • "Non players will never take the game seriously when they see that crap on the board."

    - I've yet to see a new player walk into a club and say "yep, this was exactly the degree of lexical intensity I anticipated for the word authority used by organized competitive Scrabblers." A new player who feels there are no words beyond what he learned reading Newsweek is probably not going to come back no matter what dictionary you play with. If anything, the biggest marginal alienator is when a player plays a word they "know" is good only to find out it was omitted due to sluggishness of North American dictionary compilers. SOWPODS addresses a lot of this. No longer will newbies run for the exits after losing turns on TASERING, GRODIEST, PHYCOCYAN or SHITHOLE.

    I know that a conversion to SOWPODS will initially be an uncomfortable experience for all North Americans. The benefits will greatly outweigh the discomfort. I hope that as this issue moves from the realm of the abstract to the concrete you all can spread the word to the non-netted Scrabble community. Feel free to use the FOO.

    Yours in a great leap forward,

    Last Modified 9/25/00

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