I want to play Scrabble with Jesus

hemp lover

There's a great book about the Scrabble subculture called "Word Freak." I read it last year because I was considering joining a local Scrabble group. However, after reading the book, I realized I'm what the "word freaks" call a good living room player and nothing more.

I've loved Scrabble since I was a little kid and became rather famous in my congregation for whupping the adults. When I was 10 years old, this sister with really low self-esteem challenged me to a game and I beat her somethin' fierce. She was really sarcastic to me after that and so I started losing intentionally now and then.

Anyhoooo, this book has a section on anagrams, which is a really key skill for a good Scrabble player. It tells about the history of anagrams and I found the following particularly interesting.

In the Book of John, Pontius Pilate asks Jesus, "Quid est veritas?" (What is truth?) His answer is an anagram: "Est vir qui adest." (It is the man who is before you.) For some reason, when I read that, it made me really love Jesus for a minute and not just because he apparently is truth.

Here's my favorite anagram of all time: "President Clinton of the USA" turns into "to copulate, he finds interns." What are the odds???

-L (of the word freak class)

ohiocowboy

Wonder how many points one would get for the word "Excommunication"

Crooked Lumpy Vessel

It started when my mother was a scrabble freak. She forced me to play and a child and I did. She always whooped me.

When I was 27 I visited her... we played scrabble. I whooped her for the first time. I never really gave it another thought. Until the next day when she came over my house with the scrabble board under her arm for a rematch. I lost and we have not played scrabble since.

Years pass by and me and my sister play scrabble now. You see, she is also obsessed with scrabble, as is my mom. She always whoops me. Except this one time when I used all my tiles at the beginning of the game. I got an extra 50 points. She whispered a few things under her breath and then sort of did not want to play because she knew she could not get the points. This is when I realized that she played for points and I played for interesting words. When I saw her the next week, she pulled out the scrabble board. Just like my mom. Hey, I will never say that to her face, as all us girls have a mother complex.

I will have to check out this book you mention. I would really love to whoop my sister again. I love to see her expressions. As a matter of fact, the last time she whooped me I said, "Well I will rematch you next week". Now we havent played for 3 weeks. She's tooo busy now.

Got any other good pointers? From one scrabble freak to another.

hemp lover

Ooooohhh, do I have pointers.

Buy an official Scrabble dictionary ($6, I think) and memorize all the weird two letter words that no one who doesn't play Scrabble would ever know. There are also ten U-less Q words to learn.

When you play a word like XI or XU and your opponent asks you what it means, just say I don't know. They'll think you're playing a fake word and challenge you and they'll lose a turn.

Once you play a strange word and it turns out to be legit, you can sometimes make things up and nobody will challenge you. I love a good bluff.

I could go on and on, but I'll shut up. Can you tell I can't find anyone to play with me anymore? i have to play against my computer.

I highly recommend the book, not just for the Scrabble stuff. It's a fascinating subculture with some very interesting characters.

Beans

I love scrabble as well, but sadly I believe I would fall into the livingroom catagory as well. I should have stayed away from the herb and perhaps I would be better!

Beans

Canadian District Overbeer

http://Quotes.Watchtower.ca