War of the words

They're serious, ferocious and they speak a very strange language - Kate Sidley ventures into the world of Scrabble

The recreation centre is quietly abuzz with murmurs and the small clicks of tiles when I present myself for a good drubbing at the hands of some of Joburg's best Scrabble players. I go in full of humility, despite the fact that when I play with my family, a few times a year, during the holidays, I am undisputed champion. The question today is not "Who will win?" but rather, "Just how humiliating will this ass-kicking be?"

Even with such modest expectations, it's a bit nerve-wracking. Luckily Carola Cullum, the chairman of Scrabble South Africa and the poor person who picked the short straw today and has to play the newbie, is terribly nice and encouraging. She even presents me with a list of two- and three- letter words, like CH and VUM and XU, (Scrabble players use uppercase to indicate words played in the game) which all serious Scrabblers know by heart and everyone else in the known universe suspects don't really exist.

This is apparently a common problem with beginners and non-competitive players - they get annoyed that there are words they don't understand. I have a very passionate Colombian friend who slams her hand down on the table aggressively and demands: "Use it in a sentence," if her opponent puts down a word she doesn't recognise. Carola quotes a well-known Scrabble player's famous retort: "English has almost a million words - are you so arrogant as to assume you know all of them?" We use about 20000 words in everyday parlance, so she's got a point.

The whole notion of what constitutes an acceptable word is fraught. Scrabble players accept that if a word is in one of the acceptable dictionaries or word lists, it can be played. The fact that it's strange, or rude, or you don't know what it means is neither here nor there. It's weird, though: if you're even tangentially interested in words, you find yourself getting harrumphy. Even though you know it's not the point, you find yourself saying: "What do you mean, ZA is American slang for pizza? That's outrageous. What, they're too lazy to say both syllables? Some words just don't deserve to be included."

Well, some people think so. The year 1996 marked the sad demise of 167 unsavoury yet playable words from the Scrabble dictionary used in North America, casualties in a politically correct and prudish crusade. Thus the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary was rendered suitable for "family-friendly" play.

The serious Scrabble community argued, quite reasonably, that just because you don't like the word "spic" or "honky" doesn't disqualify it from being a word. The Scrabble rules are fairly simple - if it's a recognised word in the dictionary you can play it. Nowhere does it specify that it must be a recognised word, used in polite society and inoffensive to all. The Official Tournament and Club Word List (OWL), used in competition, contains the full Monty of offensive words, too.

For serious players it's not about the words and their meanings, it's about the words and their scores, and they are shameless. Gill Nomis says: "There's a very prim and proper 80-year-old lady in our group and she played 'fuckers' against me. I nearly fell off my chair. But it was on the triple and had seven letters, it was over 100 points. Of course she would play it." Gill swears the word opgevok is playable, although I suspect it's seldom used.

The playable words are growing all the time. Says Carola: "When Collins added the word QI a few years ago, it really transformed the game. Next year, there will be 3000 new words, including QIN." That is a big breakthrough. Words with a Q but no U are very rare and extremely useful - without a U, you can be stuck with a Q for turns and turns.

Every increased word list unleashes a storm of objections. But Scrabble (the game) doesn't drive the word lists. The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary was originally created from words found in five leading dictionaries of the time, and is updated as new words come into regular usage and into dictionaries. Slang words have always been acceptable in Scrabble - slang words are, after all, found in dictionaries.

Even so, decent folk are outraged that the word GRRRL is now acceptable (it means "girl" in moron-ese, apparently), and don't get them started on INNIT. It's not just the words that made the cut that are causing outrage. In New Zealand, they are very disappointed that the word jandals (flip-flops) hasn't been included.

Back to the game. We get started, me first. I pick up my seven letters: G, I, I, I, U, O and A. In addition to all the (allegedly-real) short words, Scrabble players learn vowel dumps, words with lots of vowels to help you out in times such as this. You can thank the Maoris for some of them - EUOI, for instance. And no, I can't use it in a sentence. Sadly, I don't know any vowel dumps, except perhaps, OOOO, and I can't even do that. Carola takes a look, decides this is beyond the scope of even a New Zealand word and suggests I chuck them back. Thus I score a big fat zero on my first outing.

Things pick up a bit thereafter. Admittedly, they mostly pick up for Carola, but I occasionally manage the odd decent word or clever placement, which produces quite a thrill. It's easy to see the addictive quality that seems to create cult followers. Zambian players travelled two days by bus to play in the recent South African national tournament. Some of the local players, like Gill, play three times a week, with different groups, and make do with online play to feed their need in between. It's like AA: you can find a meeting just about every day of the week.

Scrabble is big in Nigeria, huge in Thailand, massive on the internet. Carola tells me about a Nigerian beer ad, where four seriously macho dudes are seen relaxing with a beer and a nice game of Scrabble. The Princess of Thailand is a devotee and very involved in promoting the game to young people. She hosts a tournament, the Princess Cup. In Bangkok, you can buy knock-off Scrabble boards from street vendors, the way you can buy pirated DVDs in Joburg.

With so much passion around the game, it's not surprising that it has its share of controversy. There was an outcry recently when Mattel, which owns the licence outside the US, created Scrabble Trickster, a teen-friendly offshoot that allows proper nouns. BRITNEY, anyone?

There's no reason teens can't play regular Scrabble, of course. In fact, one of the game's most attractive qualities is that it crosses lines of age, gender, race and class, even educational level. Gill is the driving force behind junior Scrabble in Gauteng, running a school club at Holy Family Convent and teaching the game at an after-school reading-and-writing club in Soweto. Three of our junior players will represent the country at the Youth World Cup, if funds can be raised. Gill swears by the game's ability to boost vocabulary and spelling, improve concentration and memory, understand probability, and make kids think strategically.

This strategic element is what differentiates higher-level Scrabble from what we mortals play. I discover this from Scrabble champ Howard Rayner, who through kindness or the sheer agony of watching my fumbling, comes to help in the game against Carola. He explains that it's important to ditch letters that are not compatible with others in the rack, and keep letters (E,T,R and so on) that are useful for seven-letter words, for which the player earns a 50-point bonus. And it works! I finally have a selection that makes up ELEVENS. Which can't go anywhere.

Nonetheless, with my helper's extensive word knowledge I manage to put some points on the board (FARCI, AKA, YARER - and no, again, I can't use them in a sentence). Any competitive element fast disappearing, Carola pulls out her laptop and brings up www.zyzzyva.net. Type in your letters and it will show you all anagrams, plus any eight-letter words you can make and the additional letter you need for each one. True addicts have zyzzyva on their phones. Generously, she doesn't put in her letters, only mine. Naturally, this speeds the game along, but don't try it if you're planning on being invited back into a competitive Scrabble club.

My new Scrabble friends also share some Scrabble wisdom, Yoda-like in its simple profundity: "A good score is one point better than your opponent" and "There are no bad racks, only words you don't know." I love it! I'm in the zone. My supposed-to-be-opponent plays OTIC, and tells me kindly that it takes an L, to make LOTIC. This allows me to play GENERAL, garner a bonus 50, and win with 374 points. WHOO HOO! Rematch Melville Café, Wednesday night, anyone?

Check out www.zascrabble.com for clubs near you, and a tournament to raise money to send our young champs overseas.