100 YEARS OLD AND STILL SCRABBLING FOR WORDS...
FINDING the right words to play in a game of Scrabble can be a difficult task. One can’t, after all, just read them off some sort of chart using a GADE on an ABAC. (I use the word ‘gade’ in the sense of a metal bar, rather than its other meaning as a type of fish, of course, though I imagine one could not use a fish for Scrabbling purposes either.)
Curiously enough, I spotted the results of the final game in this year’s World Scrabble championship, which was held in Nottingham this weekend, just after coming out of my CARRELS where I had been looking for something to feed to the pet DZO we allow to rampage around the Beachcomber Towers estate.
I had uttered an AW, which grew to an AG and even a PAH, when I found that everything in the pantry was UPTA, which was why I had gone to the library, but I was OBVS as happy as a HAJI when I found some TROELIES which I thought would be DEF for my purpose. Surely only complete ASINICOS would think otherwise. So I poured out an AME or two of water and took it with the leaves to the animal which gave every sign of being truly grateful, even though I had not gone to the trouble of picking up some KERO to enable me to heat the water to cook the leaves.
Then I returned to the house to read the Scrabble results and was astonished to find that the winner, David Eldar, an Australian now living in London, had used all of the above capitalised words in the final game to complete a 3-0 victory over runner-up Harshan Lamabadusurilya.
Scrabble players are often accused of not knowing the meanings of the words they use, but this time all the words used seem to me to be perfectly ordinary, even if TIX, ASINICOS and OBVS are not in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Just in case you have a problem with any of them, however, here is a glossary:
ABAC: an old type of calculating device in which the answer is given by lining things up with a ruler. AG: expression of regret. AME: Dutch and German liquid measure.
ASINICOS: idiots, fools (from a diminutive word for an ass).
AW: expression of mild disapproval or dismay.
CARRELS: private cubicles for the use of readers in a library. (Also a type of fabrics.)
DEF: African-American slang term meaning ‘excellent’. DZO: cross between a cow and a yak. GADE: type of fish or bar of metal. HAJI: one who has been on a pilgrimage to Mecca.
KERO: colloquial abbreviation of ‘kerosene’ in Australia and New Zealand.
OBVS: colloquial abbreviation of ‘obviously’.
PAH: expression of disgust or disdain.
TIX: colloquial abbreviation of ‘tickets’.
TROELIES: entire leaves of the bussupalm.
UPTA: worthless, no good.