The Official Scrabble Lexicon
THE OFFICIAL SCRABBLE LEXICON
[Note: Books cited below are linked to Amazon.com.]
Unlike other games that rely on a fairly simple set of rules that both define and encompass the game – like a ship in a bottle – Scrabble opens itself up, in a drunken gesture, to all the chaos and unruliness of language itself. Scrabble, in this way, is the opposite of chess. In chess, all possible moves, together with all strategic possibilities, are neatly bounded by a fairly simple set of rules. Part of the attraction of chess, I believe, is the sense of wonderment a player encounters and continuously relives as he or she explores the almost infinite creative space generated and sustained by a set of rules simple enough they can be learned in half an hour. It’s like discovering a football stadium inside a Happy Meal box.
Scrabble is the opposite. To be good at Scrabble, you have to go get the football stadium and bring it, folded neatly inside your head, to the game table. Chess is many things. It is also meticulously and neatly self-contained. For some this is virtue. For others, it is a reason to prefer Scrabble.
The football stadium that you have bring with you is the lexicon of acceptable Scrabble words.
Below is list of annotated resources that will help you get a handle on the official word set that can be played in competitive Scrabble. The official Scrabble lexicon includes 178,691 words (101 2s, 1015 3s, 4,030 4s, 8,938 5s, 15,788 6s, 24,029 7s, 29,766 8s, 29,150 9s, 22,326 10s, 16,165 11s, 11,417 12s, 7,750 13s, 5,059 14s, and 3,157 15s).
OWL2+LWL: As of March 1, 2006, in the US, Canada and Thailand, the official lexicon of acceptable Scrabble words is comprised of the The Official Tournament and Club Word List, 2nd edition (the OWL2) and the Long Word List (or the LWL). Together these two lists are often referred to OWL2+LWL. This official lexicon is maintained by the dictionary committee of the North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA). These is no single print publication that includes the entire Scrabble lexicon. The OWL2 is roughly equivalent to the The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, 4th edition, published by Merriam-Webster (the OSPD4), but the OSPD4 does not contain 9-letter words or words deemed objectionable (see below). The LWL is roughly equivalent to the set of 10 – 15 letter words in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition (although the LWL was generated using the 10th edition of this dictionary). If you MUST have a physical copy of the official lexicon sitting on your shelf, you can print out the combined text file (assuming you can locate a copy of the file) or generate (and then print) a text file of your own using Zyzzyva (http://www.zyzzyva.net). Electronic versions of the OWL2+LWL available in programs like Zyzzva are now frequently used to judge whether or not a challenged word is acceptable in tournament play(http://www.zyzzyva.net/about.shtml).
OWL2+LWL TEXT FILE: There is a text file floating around on the internet that lists all 178,691 words in the official Scrabble lexicon (the complete OWL2-LWL). This file can be imported into Excel. If you want this file, but can’t locate it, email us at contact@oldtownscrabble.com. Scrabble-related websites generally don’t post this file openly because of possible copyright issues.
OWL2: The OSPD was designed, when initially published, to serve as the official scrabble lexicon for both casual and competitive play. Judith Grad, however, found several words in the second edition that she considered offensive, including the word “jew” defined as a verb. She wrote to the National Council of Jewish Women and they began a letter-writing campaign. Publicity from this campaign motivated Hasbro chairman Alan Hassenfeld to remove “offensive” words from the OSPD beginning with the 3rd edition. This decision was unpopular with competitive Scrabble players and a compromise was reached. It was decided that the OSPD would continue to be published in its bowdlerized form, but Merriam-Webster, in coordination with the National Scrabble Association, would publish an uncensored version without definitions (words only, in an alphabetized list) that would be used in competitive play. Thus the Official Tournament and Club Word List (or OWL) was born. It was also agreed that the family-friendly OSPD would be available to the general public, while the OWL would only be available to members of the National Scrabble Association (NSA). As of July 1, 2009, the OWL2 could be purchased by anyone at http://www.wordgear.com.
THE LWL: The offical Long Word List (or LWL) can be purchased in physical form from WordGear (click here) or downloaded as a text file for personal use from the North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA) web site: http://www.scrabbleplayers.org/w/Long_List. The LWL includes all acceptable words of ten or more letters that are not listed in the the OWL2. This list has not been updated since 2002 and is based on the 10th edition of Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, instead of the current 11th edition. According to the NASPA web site, updating the LWL is currently the dictionary committee’s most pressing agenda item.
THE OSPD4: The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary. Despite its name, the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (or OSPD), is not an official word list for competitive or tournament Scrabble for at least two reasons. First, the OSPD4 only contains words from 2 to 8 letters in length. Second, beginning with the 3rd edition, words judged to be inappropriate for family play were expurgated. For these reasons (and probably others), competitive Scrabble players created the Official Word List (or OWL). The mass-market paperback edition of the OSPD4 is cheap ($7 or $8), though, and it’s a good study tool. You may want to purchase multiple copies to mark up in different ways.
EXPURGATED WORDS: In competitive Scrabble, objectionable words like the verb “jew” (to bargain with) are acceptable, as are such words as blowjob, bulldyke, cocksucker, coloreds, dickhead, shithead, wetback, and many more. None of these words appear in the OSPD4, although they are included in the OWL. Lists of “expurgated” words are available from a number of different web sites. I believe the file I’ve posted contains all expurgated words, but I have not personally spent any time verifying it (which would require a very tedious and time-consuming word-by-word comparison of the OWL2 and the OSPD4). Without making any guarantees regarding its accuracy, here is a list of the words (with definitions, inner and outer hooks, and a column for study notes) that are acceptable in Scrabble, but are not included in the OSPD4: Expurgated_ALL.pdf. There really isn’t anything like playing in a library-type setting, with the accompanying hushed whispers and tournament formalities, and having your opponent, a proper grandma-esque sexagenarian with bluish-white hair, lay down the word “poontang” or “dickhead” or extend the word “mother” already on the board by adding “fuckers” to it, and then calmly add up her 80+ point score on the play as though everything is as right as rain.
MERRIAM-WEBSTER’S COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY: Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition (hardback). The Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition (hardback) is the official reference for long words. The OSPD4 contains words from 2 – 8 letters in length (with some exceptions), while the Official Tournament and Club Word List, 2nd edition, includes words from 2 – 9 letters in length (again, with some exceptions), so another reference source is required to determine the acceptability of longer words. Although plays involving words of 10 or more letters are relatively rare in Scrabble, there are significant numbers of longer words that can, at least in theory, be played, including 22,326 10-letter words, 16,165 11-letter words, etc.
OWL2+LWL HISTORY: Information about the evolution of the Scrabble lexicon is available from numerous online sources (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Tournament_and_Club_Word_List). Start with this Wikipedia article, then if you’re still curious, use a search engine (e.g. www.google.com) and terms like OWL2, TWL2 or TWL06 to locate additional information. In addition to online sources, Stephen Fatsis does a good job detailing some of the interesting history (and controversies) of the Scrabble lexicon in a chapter entitled “The Words” in his book Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players.
TO REVIEW (because the alphabet soup can get confusing). The North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA) has a dictionary committee that determines what words are acceptable in competitive Scrabble play. In the US, Canada and Thailand, this lexicon is referred to as the OWL2+LWL (Official Tournament and Club Word List, 2nd edition+Long Word List). You can probably find a text file of this lexicon online, or you can create your own text file using the Zyzzyva study program. The OWL2 can be purchased in physical form from www.wordgear.com. Longer words are listed in the Long Word List or LWL (available for download from the NASPA web site). The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, 4th edition, by Merriam-Webster, and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition, are both useful resources for casual players.
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