Scrabble has added a list of slang words to its official reference guide, including thang, grrl and innit, leaving the world of Scrabblers bitterly divided.
Almost 3,000 new words have been added to the new Collins Official Scrabble Words reference guide – or Scrabble Bible – released today.
Among the new words now allowed in cult board game Scrabble are slang terms for drugs such as gak, tik and tina, technology words such as webzine, darknet, facebook, wiki and myspace.
Indian cookery terms keema, gobi and aloo are now also viable Scrabble words.
Unsurprisingly there are many who are up in arms over the supposed corruption of the English language, via Scrabble.
Twitter user Emily Luscombe wrote: “It’s one thing to bemoan bad foreign language skills for holding Britain back in Europe, but then we put ‘innit’ into the Scrabble dictionary?”
However, Robert Groves, editor of Collins English Dictionaries and editor of the latest word list for Scrabble users, defended the addition of new terms.
“The latest edition adds nearly 3,000 new words to the existing quarter of a million available to Scrabble players,” he said.
“These additions are an eclectic mix of new technological jargon, overseas English, recent colloquialisms, street slang, and a few phrases that had not made it on to the list until now.”
Mark Nyman, a four-time world Scrabble champion, agreed that there’s nothing wrong with a bit of aloo on the Scrabble board, innit.
“When words become commonly used it’s representative and makes sense to include these in this reference book,” Nyman said.
“It’s like the Bible for Scrabble players. It’s what we use to avoid any major arguments. It’s fundamental.”
Other Scrabble-heads may require more convincing through.
Twitter is awash with criticism over the game’s new additions.
“As a Linguistics graduate I embrace language change, but part of me dies inside: “Grrl”, “innit”, “thang” added to official Scrabble list,” tweeted ABlakeley.
“Shame on #Scrabble for the inclusion of ‘innit’… Please don’t encourage bad English just for PR’s sake…” agrees S_Strickland.
Are you horrified? Or is it time Scrabble got down with the kids?
