Freak369's Full Review: Merriam Webster - The official scrabble players di...
Have you ever known someone that is completely brutal when it comes to board games? They are ruthless, never bend any rule and will use the challenge option at the drop of a hat. That, in a nutshell, is Tommy. I have one of the deluxe Scrabble boards with a swivel base, nice wooden letters and plastic grid game top. The game will it out and in play for weeks on end. That is the only aspect of the game that we do not abide by; we don’t impose a time limit on moves if one of us is going to be busy or he is out of town on business. He has even gone so far as to take a picture of the board so he can study it when he is away. At first I thought he was taking pictures to make sure I wasn’t cheating but the way we play makes it impossible to cheat because each word is logged with the score.
Needless to say, we both know some really strange words that we reserve for the trickiest of plays. That’s where this ‘official’ Scrabble Players dictionary comes in extremely handy. The rules of wordplay are rather simple; you can’t use proper names, places or slang but those rules are left up to individual players. We stick with the original rules so every word that is in this book is cleared to be used in a standard Scrabble game. Another nice thing is that, according to the cover, this is endorsed by the National Scrabble Association. I doubt either of us will ever take our love of the game to that level but it is nice to know what this book carries some official weight to it.
How is this different from a regular dictionary? When you first start reading through it you don’t see that much of a difference but the more you read the more things you pick up on as being ‘missing’. There are only brief explanations or definitions of words given; you do get the part of speech that it belongs to so you know whether the word is being used correctly and plurals are also included. A nice thing about this book is that it also lists variations and other common branch off words like “mucoid” [page 362] and “mucoidal”. If you like to trump other players by adding prefixes or suffixes you will find some useful lists and tables in the book. The list of “un” words starts on page 616 and runs through page 628 but it is listed at the bottom of the page so it isn’t monopolizing pages after page with a simple list of words. If you are someone that loves to play Scrabble you can pick this book up, open to any page and just start checking out words to see if you know them or their definition.
What are some of the words that I picked up thanks to this book?
fabulate [page 193] to compose fables
pogonip [page 433] a dense fog of suspended ice particles
daylily [page 138] a flowering plant
slotback [page 534] a football player
massa [page 337] master
zanza [page 671] musical instrument
ironist [page 284] one who uses irony
cowslip [page 124] a flowering plant
unsonsie [page 626] unlucky
shoran [page 522] a navigation system
catenoid [page 91] a geometric surface
pinguid [page 426] greasy
So know you know what you do get from this book; what don’t you get? There are no proper names, places or slang words in the book so if you grabbed this thinking it would make a good general dictionary, you could be extremely disappointed. The creators claim that there are over 100,000 words in the book and 4,000 new words that have been added since the last edition. I am not about to sit there and count them so I will have to take their word on it. Any time I have had to look up a word or just wanted to brush up on some new entries it was easy to use and even if I didn’t know the correct spelling, I was able to track down the word by going through the different phonetic possibilities.
So why spend $7.50 on this? Well, according to the rules of the game if a word appears in a dictionary it can be used in the game but the provision is no proper names or places. With the inclusion of slang words into newer dictionaries the point can be argued and if anyone could argue it to death, it would be Tommy. Suffice it to say, we started off with one copy of this and now have two. One that stays in the house and one that he takes with him on trips. I had to shake my head and laugh when I looked in the truck. Tucked up on the shelf and secured with a bungee cord were several DVD porn titles, the Rand McNally atlas collection and The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary.
A newly revised and updated edition of the book that millions of Scrabble players call their bible. Authorized by the makers of Scrabble Brand crosswo...More at Barnes & Noble.com
A newly revised and updated edition of the book that millions of Scrabble players call their bible. Authorized by the makers of Scrabble Brand crosswo...More at Barnes & Noble.com
A newly revised and updated edition of the book that millions of Scrabble players call their bible. Authorized by the makers of Scrabble Brand crosswo...More at Barnes & Noble.com
Subscribe to More Reviews on Merriam Webster - The official scrabble players dictionary Get the RSS Feed: - Add to My Yahoo!: - Add to Google Homepage:
Subscribe to Freak369's Reviews: Get the RSS Feed: - Add to My Yahoo!: - Add to Google Homepage:
Muze: Copyright 1995 - 2008 Muze Inc. For personal non-commercial use only. All rights reserved.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2008 Shopping.com, Inc.