Ze word of the year for Scrabble could be high scorer

Gender neutral pronoun to be added to game’s official dictionary

FOR Scrabble players who like to sneak their high-scoring letters on to bonus spaces, the next batch of updates to the game’s official dictionary will offer something particularly special.

The gender neutral pronoun “ze” will be included as an acceptable word for the first time.

Used as an alternative to he or she when a person chooses not to identify with either gender, or when an individual is neither male nor female, the term has increased in usage in recent years.

In the run-up to the game’s 70th anniversary this weekend, Elie Dangoor, chairman of the World English Language Scrabble Players Association (Wespa), said: “Ze will be a regular word in the game – it will be used much more than other new words because it will score highly. I will try it whenever I can.”

The new Scrabble dictionary, which will be published in May, includes a handful of new words gleaned from social media.

“Part of the education can be a continuum – you want to learn [the words] to score more points so they become part of your language knowledge,” said Mr Dangoor.

“So like I am learning English words from Shakespeare, I am learning text speak from Scrabble.”

More than 4,500 new words will be added to the official Scrabble dictionary next year, reflecting linguistic changes over the past four years and additions to the Collins’ English Dictionary. Among the other potentially useful, shorter words being added are millennial favourite “bae”, which means boyfriend or girlfriend, and “zen” used as an adjective to mean peaceful.

The changes will also finally allow “pluto” to be played. Previously excluded by the rules on proper nouns, it will now be acceptable as a verb meaning to lose importance.

Its definition stems from the idea that Pluto became less important when it was demoted from a planet to a dwarf planet.

Darryl Francis, who has been the Wespa dictionary chairman for 20 years and is part of the team compiling the 2019 Scrabble dictionary, added: “I didn’t know what nduja was, I only know it because I can see it as one of our new words. To me, that will be a word to use next year.”