I have never been to a Scrabble tournament. I don’t belong to a real-world Scrabble club. I don’t play Scrabble in public places. But in almost every other way, I am a Scrabble Nerd.
I play online, usually 10-minute timed games, via the free software available at <www.isc.ro>. ISC = The Internet Scrabble Club. And, yes, that “ro” means it’s hosted in Romania. I play Scrabble on a Romanian website. Why is it Romanian? I have no idea.
At one point, years ago, I memorized all the allowable two-letter words. I made a stab at the “threes,” but never quite got comfortable with them. I also tried and failed to memorize certain subsets of seven-letter words (SATINE_ and SATIRE_, in case any fellow Scrabble Nerds are curious). At this point I’ve pretty much given up on the memorization thing, because it’s incredibly boring to stare at lists of meaningless letter combinations.
However, I still keep a list of crazy (legal) words my opponents use against me. Words they have no business knowing. Words that prove I am less of a nerd than them. Definitively!
Here, for your edification, is a sampling of the four-letter words from that list:
unco, gleg, liri, nark, haet, yowe, nogg, migg, gadi, ambo, zebu, lowe, nome, adit, sago, corm, mabe, bort, flic, rynd, pice, nene, curf, fley, sorb, hade, cedi, chao, birl, soja, knur, azan, peri, ohia, cete, axil, puli, naoi, unai, vagi, agio, mity, neep, diel, kiva, joss, gite, tate
Get a life, people!
So that I have a better chance of beating you at Scrabble.
On the Romanian Scrabble website.
On which I’ve played several thousand games of Scrabble.
Literally.
(My current username is “mophi,” if any of you are up for a beating.)
One Comment
Did it occur to you that perhaps these ridiculous four letter words are Romanian? That might explain why your opponents know more of them than you do.
I mean…ya know?
(Hi, I’m Daphna’s friend Naomi. I think I met you once at Chicago City Limits.)
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