Comment by realusername | Hacker News Reader

Comment by realusername | Hacker News Reader

(French here) I'm not surprised at all. I've seen a documentary once about Scrabble competitions and the guys were discussing after the match about the missed possibilities. One guy was complaining that he could almost get one long obscure word I've never heard about which would be worth a lot of points and the others were discussing about it. The reporter then asked them what the word meant and no one had any idea. Not a single French player could explain what the word meant, it was just in the official dictionary, that's all.

When you organize a Scrabble competition, you need to have an official dictionary or people start inventing non-sense words to get points. In French for example, you could add the prefix 're' (meaning again or back) to almost any verb and everyone would understand, this is just an example but it's really easy to create nonsense words that people understand from their root. And since you have an official dictionary, it's not about words anymore, it's about memorizing the dictionary.

But that's the thing about Scrabble! My wife has poorer vocabulary than me and can't spell for nuts. But she beats me at Scrabble 80% of the time.

You really don't need to know the meaning. You can vastly improve your game just by knowing words like jo, qi xi, aa..

Aside -- words like qi have changed the game a lot.

As a slightly competitive Scrabble player, words like qi have ruined the game. You should need to know the meaning of the word to play it. This applies for short words and long words alike.

Scrabble is a play of words or meaning? Perhaps you're looking for the triple word scrore in today's crossword puzzle as well?

> You should need to know the meaning of the word to play it

How would you go about determining in a regulated fashion whether someone knows the meaning of a word?

Would you have them offer a definition to be checked against an official dictionary?

Would the definition given have to match the official dictionary definition word for word?

Is so, wouldn't this simply force high-level scrabble players to memorize not only the official words but the official meanings themselves?

And if perfect matching wouldn't be required, how much variation would be allowed and how would such variation be measured?

There's no sense in falling back on the "just use the word in a sentence" proof, either. Because that's no proof at all, since, even if we dispense with all the problems consensus introduces, if the usage is contested, then some official dictionary definition will have to be referenced in the end.

And then you're going to have to deal with the above mentioned issues anyways.

The desire for a more natural, simple and organic Scrabble world in which any word played must be theoretically backended by a player's knowledge of its definition is, well, just asking for trouble.

This suggestion isn't meant to apply to serious or competitive play. It's an attempt to keep things more fun among friendly players of differing skill levels. Anything that 'forces' serious players to memorize more meaningless information is a benefit, as far as I'm concerned.

That's what judges are for. A sufficient definition should be obvious almost always anyways.

> A sufficient definition

The question is: what determines sufficiency?

Edit: Further, definitions are often very difficult to produce even in rudimentary form.

The property of sufficiency is itself what is obvious about a definition.

It's like pornography, you know it when you see it. And for the rare instances that it's not obvious, there are judges to make a decision.

> You should need to know the meaning of the word to play it

How would you go about determining in a regulated fashion whether someone knows the meaning of a word?

Would you have them offer a definition to be checked against an official dictionary?

Would the definition given have to match the official dictionary definition word for word?

Is so, wouldn't this simply force high-level scrabble players to memorize not only the official words but the official meanings themselves?

And if perfect matching wouldn't be required, how much variation would be allowed and how would such variation be measured?

There's no sense in falling back on the "just use the word in a sentence" proof, either. Because that's no proof at all, since, even if we dispense with all the problems consensus introduces, if the usage is contested, then some official dictionary definition will have to be referenced in the end.

And then you're going to have to deal with the above mentioned issues anyways.

The desire for a more natural, simple and organic Scrabble world in which any word played must be theoretically backended by a player's knowledge of its definition is, well, just asking for trouble.

Are you referring the documentary Word Wars? If so, I can wholeheartedly recommend. great film.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390632/

But what about all the verb conjugation rules and all their exceptions? It seems impossible to just memorize those without being a native speaker.

This is why I never play Scrabble: the Scrabble dictionary.

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