So what is with the official Scrabble dictionary?

Does anyone know what on earth is up with that?

I was playing Scrabble, downloaded from Shockwave.com (of which I am, ahem, a member). Fancying myself a ‘whiz’ at word-making, I started at that level (there was Novice, Student and then Whiz, after which was five more ranks to the highest, that is ‘Perfect’). So I really wasn’t underestimating ‘Maven’ aka the robot I was playing against.

But come on. Ashy? Joky? Who the hell uses words like that? Even Google can find no meaning for ’joky‘ but nooo, the Official Scrabble Dictionary says that ‘joky’ is an adjective as in JOKIER, JOKIEST jokey. And lo behold, Merriam Webster has a definition for it as well. It’d better, since it publishes The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (truncated to “OSPD” for those ‘in the know’).

Don’t think I’ll be taking part in any Scrabble tournaments in the near future. Probably pop a vein contesting why words like “Mus” (apparently a plural form of the 12th letter of the Greek alphabet) can be used while everyday words like “non” are not allowed. And how ‘nam’ can be the past-tense for ‘nim’ (it means ‘to steal’) when MW itself only defines it as a geographical name to describe rivers, and that the past tense for nim, is actually nimmed.

Again, who in this sweet earth still uses the words nim, nam or nimmed is beyond the understanding of my tiny brain. Nim incidentally also means to steal a little bit in the Cantonese dialect. Would love to see my dad’s reaction the next time we play Scrabble and I start pulling these words on him. As an ex-English teacher, don’t think he’d appreciate my attempts at being ‘joky’.

God, what I wouldn’t give for a smoke and a drink. Scrabble just isn’t doing it for me!