Word Nerd

POCKET SCRABBLE DICTIONARY

I have all the Scrabble dictionaries. In the 1st and 2nd editions they still had all the swear words—like shit, nigger, kike and jew. You still weren’t allowed proper nouns so jew was only in there in a vernacular sense. Like “jew” meaning “to bargain”. In the 3rd edition all the questionable words were taken out.

Chambers used to be the official Scrabble dictionary publishers but recently they were dumped for Collins. The problem with this is that none of the Scrabble clubs have followed suit and so everyone

is playing with different rulebooks. There are lots of ways to play Scrabble but the important thing is that everyone comes into it with the same spirit.

SCRABBLE RUG

I bought this on eBay for a friend’s wedding present. It took months and months to arrive so it didn’t

make it in time. It’s a workable board and has a Scrabble Brand sticker of authenticity on the back.

DERRYN HINCH’S GUIDE TO WINNING

Derryn once played with the creator of Scrabble I believe. The secret to winning is a subtle combination of things. It’s not about getting the highest score every turn but more about procuring the right letters. You get the ultimate scrabble score by placing a word down the outside column and getting two triple word scores. Everything has to be working in your favour. I once made the word ‘disguise’ over two triple word scores and no one could touch me.

MICHAEL GROVES SPECIAL EDITION SCRABBLE

This guy designed lots of classy stuff for Target in America. I had to order it online but they wouldn’t ship it to me because two different companies own the Scrabble licences (Hasbro in America and Mattel, the rest of the world) and they have an agreement not to ship into each other’s territories. I had to have it sent to an address in America and get my friend to send it from there. This has Michael’s autograph up the top.

CD ROM SCRABBLE

I have never used this one. You can tell that this is produced in America though by the logo. The British art direction on the boards is shitty because they have tried to make it modern whereas the American art direction is totally going for the classic look.

KEY RING SCRABBLE
This is the smallest Scrabble board in the world. To make it this tiny, they had to leave out a row or two so it’s kind of crap.

Q WITHOUT U WORDS WATCH

This watch has every word that contains a ‘q’ and not ‘u’. It is basically the perfect cheat’s tool. I also have Scrabble cuff links but I couldn’t find them.

HEBREW SCRABBLE

I bought this for my grandad but didn’t give it to him because Scrabble doesn’t really work with Hebrew

letters. The Hebrew alphabet doesn’t have regular vowels. Instead they use a system of dots to give the same letter different sounds. I’m not sure why they bothered.

COUNTERFEIT SCRABBLE

I’m the only idiot in the $2 shop who always spends more than $2 on things. This was $7.