Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Scrabble adds innit, thang and grrl to official guide

"That's definitely a word, innit?" could soon be the cry of many a Scrabble player battling their way to victory. New slang terms, including "innit", "thang" and "grrl", have been added to the official list of words that can be used in the popular board game.

Technology-related words such as "webzine", "darknet" and "Facebook" have also made the Collins Official Scrabble Words book, compiled by staff in Glasgow. And while international players will welcome the addition of 3,000 extra words to the list, traditionalists may be left dropping their tile rack in horror.



The publishers say it is the "most comprehensive Scrabble wordlist ever produced". There are terms from Indian cookery, including "keema", "alu" and "gobi", alongside the slang "blingy" - meaning shiny. Others permitted include words for various kinds of drug such as tik, gak and tina.

Robert Groves, editor of Collins English Dictionaries and editor of the latest word list for Scrabble users, said: "The latest edition adds nearly 3,000 new words to the existing quarter of a million available to Scrabble players. These additions are an eclectic mix of new technological jargon, overseas English, recent colloquialisms, street slang, and a few phrases that had not made it on to the list until now."

4 comments:

TC Byrd said...

I am no stickler, but this is a travesty. Grrl? Facebook?!! Facebook is a proper !@#$ noun, for god's sake. Ridiculous.

arbroath said...

Heh heh!

annemarie said...

I hate the word innit

andiscandis said...

As long as ZA and QI are still in there, I'm good. :-)