'OK' Now OK as 300 New Words Added To Scrabble Dictionary

Scrabble, much like Monopoly (or any game you play with your family), can often lead to arguments. Whether it's because a word is in the dictionary when it shouldn't be or because a word isn't in the dictionary when it should be.

A textbook example is as follows: Grandma puts a Z next to an A on a triple letter score - "10 times three is 30, plus the one for A, that's 31," she tots up smugly.

"Za? What's za?" you ask, curiously.

"It's short for pizza," she replies nonchalantly.

"Ohhh fuck off Grandma!" you scream, flipping the board into the air and smashing 'za' across the room.

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Well, now's your chance to get even thanks to the addition of 300 new words, which include super hip lingo that grandma will never understand, such as 'emoji', 'twerk' and 'frowny'.

The words appear in the newly released 6th edition of Merriam-Webster's Official Scrabble Players Dictionary - the first update in four years. Perhaps the headline addition is 'ok', a word that has been argued over in Scrabble games across the world down the years. Other words to have officially been deemed playable in the latest addition include 'facepalm', 'hivemind', 'puggle', 'nubber', 'zomboid', 'sheeple' and 'botnet'.

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The first edition was released in 1976 and the book is most commonly used in American game play, while in the UK, Collins' version is normally used. That said UK players, you know your grandma would delve into the US vocabulary bank given the chance to land on a double word score, so just make sure you beat her to it.

Peter Sokolowski, lexicographer and editor at large at Merriam-Webster, thinks 'ew' is among one of the more interesting new additions.

According to the Mail Online, he said: "Basically two and three-letter words are the lifeblood of the game.

"I think 'ew' is interesting because it expresses something new about what we're seeing in language, which is to say that we are now incorporating more of what you might call transcribed speech.

"Sounds like 'ew' or 'mm-hmm', or other things like 'coulda' or 'kinda'.

"Traditionally, they were not in the dictionary but because so much of our communication is texting and social media that is written language, we are finding more transcribed speech and getting a new group of spellings for the dictionary."

So what are you waiting for? Head over to your grandma's and connect a 'bizjet' to a 'beatdown' and watch the look on her face.

Topics: UK News

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey