The Joy of Scrabble

I had the privilege of having a number of cracker jack Scrabble players in residence over the Christmas holidays. As a result, I learned a new rule and once again became fixated on one of the best games for linguaphiles, ever.

The new rule, introduced by Second Champion of the Universe (my universe, that is), Emily Blue, is thus:

"A proper play uses any number of the player's tiles to form a single continuous word ("main word") on the board, reading either left-to-right or top-to-bottom. The main word must either use the letters of one or more previously played words, or else have at least one of its tiles horizontally or vertically adjacent to an already played word. If words other than the main word are newly formed by the play, they are scored as well, and are subject to the same criteria for acceptability."

I had been leaving that option on the table for years. And in true Emily-Vs.-Her-Mother style, we argued, sorta graciously, for fifteen minutes until one of us (me) insisted on actually consulting the rules in the box. And, dammit... she was right!

I hate being wrong.

Just ask any family member... proving you're right in an argument with me isn't always worth the trouble. I also hate that about me. The good news is, that pretty much sums up what I hate. Except for cooked turnips and being cold.

But being wrong and learning something about the world's best word game is okay. I sucked it up and carried on. And cleaned up the board, I might add. But Emily still rocks. She just rocks a teeny bit less than me, in Scrabble.

For those of you who are interested, I don't play by the Scrabble dictionary. Not that I have anything against real words that real people never use. It's just that it feels way less fun to get your knickers in a twist about using those final vowels in the end game. If I can't find a word I would write here tomorrow, I will concede "done" and let the counting begin.

And maybe, it would be a better world if we just did away with the counting altogether. Could we play merely for the fun of building puzzles of words together, in front of the fireplace with a nice Syrah in hand?

BTW: two tiles were left un-played in the making of this non-scored game. First two in the comments section to correctly identify said tiles wins....

Nothing. But the satisfaction of being first. (And having really good eyes, still.) I put a ridiculous amount of energy into the everyday quest of being first, and/or right. So here's your chance...