they are NOT words Mum
there is always a controversy that happens around our scrabble games
always!!!
for a long time we played with only a vague understanding of the rules
and we were happy in our ignorance though no strangers to trouble either.
then one Christmas my nephews wife told us about the rule that gives the winner everyone elses points
ha ha we liked that and looked at a few other rules.
this christmas I lashed out and bought a brand new Collins friends and family scrabble dictionary
that will end the arguments I thought.
wrong very very wrong.
up until this we had been using our 1948 red chambers twentieth century dictionary with pictures in it
lovelly book that I picked up for nothing in a barrow outside the Goyder Street Community Library in Narrabundah
a great book full of archaic and obscure words
most of which are no longer within our text speak.
one night Greg played the word ska
full of meaning to him
something about a type of reggae music.
sorry, not in the chambers.
well he argued for a while but chambers won and greg pouted.
much muttering went on about the ancient book and a need to update,
for goodness sake it doesn’t even have internet.
that’s kinda cool isn’t it ?
a world before this
before I emailed and blogged
before I researched and downloaded.
it became that we courted controversy
we wanted that arguement and hysterical laughter
we wanted to debate the disparity of old and new
that shock of in or not.
so here I am thinking that this year I have silenced these altercations
and perhaps we might find our fun in stretching our word hoard
wrong and wrong again.
suddenly we were thrown into the world of two letter words
that can hook a word to allow parallel play
uh?
but what does gu or mm or ee mean?
and isn’t ad , bi and op abbreviations?
and ko a kiwi traditional digging tool ie Maori language is that not foreign?
oh dear we moved into even deeper waters .
cries of ‘ I am not having these silly two letter words in the game’ ,
‘they are not words Mum’
they are abbreviations, foreign or plain ridiculous.
loud and clear.
yesterday morning I walked into the kitchen to hear sedition talking
lets just get rid of ‘ that ‘dictionary
and get a new Oxford
revolution rising
a bucking against the rules.
as if the dictionary is to blame but maybe it is,
because we havent even embraced the three-letter words yet,
like biz for business , caz for casual and miz for misery
no one will wear them without a blue.
so you see we have plenty of fun living without television,
I mean it is not all scrabble you know,
sometimes we play perudo
sometimes we read
sometimes we gaze into the fire and dream
but that is a whole other kettle of fish.
the faerie embassy 