Saturday, November 06, 2004

What in the world?

Hello all.

I have not given up on the blog, the past few weeks were just very busy. I'm always hoping I'll get to the point where I make a post once or twice a week, but we'll see I guess. ENOUGH EXCUSES, ON TO THE CONTENT!

Words in Scrabble:

Okay, so I've made fewer than 10 posts on this blog, and I already have one on Scrabble (well, actually Clabbers), so do I really need another one? Well, I spend a surprisingly high amount of my free time lately playing Scrabble, so yes it is.

One of the very best parts of playing Scrabble is the hilarious words you learn. By flipping through the Scrabble dictionary and watching others play, here are some great words my brother and I have come across...

"Out" words:
There are a lot of hilarious words in Scrabble which begin with the prefix out-. I will list a sampling of a few of them. Remember, all of these words mean "to surpass in ___"...like for example outgnaw means "to surpass in gnawing"
outhowl
outbeam (to surpass in beaming?)
outgnaw
outhomer (to surpass in hitting home runs)
outdrag (to surpass in drag racing)
outbox
outecho (can't really come up with a good context to use this one..."Wow, this cavern sure outechos the last cavern we went to")
outcheat
outfumble (don't know how you would use this word. Like you are better at fumbling, or fumble more often or something?)
outscoop
outwish
I could go on and on because there are literally hundreds of "out" words in scrabble and most of them are hilarious.

There are also some funny "anti-" words like antipolice and antiboss ("opposed to the police" and "opposed to bosses".) Jim is a good worker but he seems a little, you know, antiboss.

"Oh come on, that's a word?" words

There are lots of examples of these, words which we use in normal conversation but would not guess are words in scrabble.
Aargh, aarrgh, and aarrghh are all words, but not argh or any other variation.
phooey is a word, and so is the alternate spelling pfui.
brr and brr ("used to indicate that one is cold") are words but not br
hmm and hm
sh, but not shh
Gee, and jee
doggone is a word, and it's actually a verb so doggoned and doggoning are words..."I'll get to that when I'm through doggoning this thing"
okeydokey and okeydoke are both words.
luv is a word (it means "a sweetheart").
Again, tons of examples of these, any words like "um" or "uh" or anything that you would use, is probably a playable word in Scrabble.

Words that sound funny

Are you sick of, when people asking your name, saying things like "I am named Greg Fanoe" (or whatever your real name is). Well look no further than Scrabble which offers two alternative words that mean the same thing as named, "yclept" and "benempted". "Benempted" is a weird past tense of the verb "to bename" which has the definition of "to name". Don't ask me why you would take an existing word, like "name", pop the prefix "be-" in front of it, and have it mean the exact same thing. "I am yclept Greg Fanoe, how about you?"
Have you ever found that something was suggestive of a cow, but been unable to find the exactly correct word to describe it? Well, look no further than Scrabble which offers up the word "cowy" meaning "suggestive of a cow".
What about if you have an entire satchel filled with something and somebody asks you how much you have? Confused as to what to tell them? No problem! Just inform them you have a satchelful.
What's the most difficult 7-letter word to play in Scrabble? Well, obviously there's no one correct answer, but my good money goes on zyzzyva which requires you have the only "z", both of the y's (there are only 2 in scrabble), both blanks, and one of the two v's to play.
Next time you see Steve, maybe you can ask him if he saw any rasbora, which is a kind of tropical fish.
My house just got a new "woodbin", which is a place for storing firewood. It's a nice "subpart" of the home (aka "a subdivision of a part" whatever that means).
I might need to go ask my dentist to check out my "dogtooth" which is "a cuspid"
The word "ylem" means "a hypothetical matter from which all substances were developed"...perhaps some philosophy major can help me out on that one.
"yobbo" is another funny word which means, poetically enough, "yob". In case you are curious "yob" means "a hoodlum"
Next time you see somebody wearing a robe, instead of sounding like a dumb schmo and saying he's wearing a robe, now you can sound like a chic genius and say that he is "berobed"
"Wow, man, I'm okay with you making lewd comments, but that was just overlewd"

Funny plurals
This is the last class of funny Scrabble words I will talk about.

Here's a possible awkward situation averted by Scrabble. If you are ever talking about saliva, but you are, you know, talking about more than one saliva, the plural is "salivas". This is a funny one to try and put in context.
"bigs" is a word, because apparently big can be used as a noun to mean "an individual or thing of importance". Man, that Mike Lee is sure a big.
"whens", "hows", "heres", all of these kinds of words are plurals. I can't imagine when you would need to pluralize "when" but there it is, in case you ever need it.
I bet you thought that the plural of "deer" is just "deer". Well, you're only half right because "deers" is also an acceptable plural.

Okay that's enough of that.

Some fun Scrabble facts: Most consecutive bingos (remember a bingo is when you use all your letters) to start a game? 7.
Highest possible word score? 392 for mezquite or caziques across 2 triple word scores and with the q on the double letter score. That ignores possible hooks from the other letters in your word.

Personal Scrabble update:

My new rating is 1113, which is a personal best. I know that holds no context for you all, but 1600 is considered an "expert", 1113 is an intermediate, it's probably about average. My brother and I have both already memorized all the 2 letter words and are now working on the 3 letter words.
Highest score in one game: 460
Highest score for one move: 95 for "pomading"
What if you don't count bingos?: 72 for zeal.
My little brother beats me out in one category, as he scored 110 points for "aquifers" and 105 for "examine"

Fun fact about Greg Fanoe:
I'm watching Kiki's Delivery Service in the background while writing this post. This makes me want to write a post on my absolute favorite movies of all time. No promises this time, I've already broken enough blog-promises to make another foolish one.

And one last Scrabble note.
Some funny Scrabble non-words:
Realtor (apparently it's capitalized, although you are allowed to play Realtor in British Scrabble)
"untimed" is not a word in Scrabble.
Neither is "internet"
"bingoed" and "bingoing" are not words although they are used by Scrabble players all the time
And lastly, "scrabble" and "clabbers" are both playable.



Greg.




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