From 'duh' to 'za,' small words slip into updated Scrabble Dictionary

By Betsy Price
Newhouse News Service

	NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE Alabama librarian Jim Pate heads the committee updating the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary.
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Well, duh.

That little three-letter word is about to make a bunch of word nerds happy: It's being added to the official list of words that are legal to play in Scrabble games.

"Duh" is one of about 8,500 words to be added to the official Scrabble Players Dictionary and tournament word list within the year, says Jim Pate, a Scrabble nut from Alabama who is chairman of the committee revising the dictionary.

Other words to make the list for the first time include tons of computer and tech terms, but also "upsadaisy," "qi" and "za."

"Every once in a while, it is useful that the official word list that's used in clubs and tournaments be updated to reflect the fact that words enter the English language all the time," says Pate, a librarian in Birmingham Public Library's Southern History Department.

His seven-person committee is working its way through four dictionaries — Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary 11th edition, American Heritage College Dictionary fourth edition, Random House Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 2000 and Webster's New World Dictionary fourth edition — to compare word lists.

Players often ask why a certain word isn't legal in a game.

"The easy answer is that it's not a word in the official list because it never showed up in any of the dictionaries we reviewed," says Pate, who at 55 has been playing Scrabble since high school and even taught a class on it for University of Alabama at Birmingham's Continuing Studies program.

For those unfamiliar with the game, each player draws seven tiles and attempts to make words on a crossword board, building on what's already there.
 
Letters have varying point values, and some places on the board allow you to double or triple the point score.

The more words you know, the better.

"I sort of have the goal, like all top players, to really learn the entire dictionary, at least up to eight-letter words," says Bob Gillis of Huntsville, Ala., a member of Pate's committee, computer programmer and author of "Bob's Bible," a popular Scrabble book about how to hook a letter onto the front or back of a word for more points.

A pleasant, bearded fellow with a kindly professorial manner, Pate once scored 370 points on a single turn by using the word "quezale" in a computer game. He later went back and put an "s" on it.

"That's more than I score in most games," he said.

Under normal circumstances, players score 15 to 20 points in a turn, Pate says. "But you're always looking for that bingo, using all seven of the tiles, so you not only get the points you score, but also the bonus of 50 points."

Against a human, Pate's highest point score in a single turn was 167 points for the misspelled word "graineries." Pate knew it was spelled incorrectly, but his opponent didn't challenge him, and the score stood.

That's the value of the dictionary and official word list: If Pate's opponent had challenged him and won, Pate would have lost the score and a turn.

Like many players, Pate once spent hours studying lists of words. Now he reads dictionaries. Pate volunteered to be on the dictionary committee for the National Scrabble Association and ended up its chairman.

Short words will cause the biggest stir among Scrabble fans, Pate and Gillis say.

"Qi," an alternate form of "chi," a word that signifies energy in Chinese phrases such as tai chi, gives players a way to use the Q without a U. It's 11 points, face value (10 for the Q).

"Za," which is a shortened form of the word "pizza," is also 11 points, face value (10 for the Z).

"It leaves only C and V that don't have a two-letter play," Gillis says.

At least for now.

But short words aren't the only thing that will be added to the list that's now about 104,000 words.

"Unununium" (11 points, face value) is making the list, too. It's the name for Element 111, which hasn't yet been named for a person, Pate says. "Each one of those uns stands for a one."

"Upsadaisy" (15 points, face value) is an alternative spelling for upsie-daisie, the interjection used most commonly when folks pick up small kids.

The committee hopes to have the new book and word list finished before August, when the National Scrabble Tournament is in New Orleans. The fallback deadline is January 2005.

The committee has been through three of the four dictionaries. Occasionally, Pate says, members call on the lexicographers at Merriam-Webster, which publishes the Scrabble dictionary, for rulings on words, spellings and uses.

For example, he says, the verb "methinks" is acceptable play, but members wondered if it could be conjugated. Turns out it can be only partly conjugated.

"'Methought' is the past of it, but you can't be 'methinking,' " Pate says.

To which we say: Duh.

Seven points.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company