Scrabble dictionary adds 500 new words better known to Millennials and Gen Z
MT. LEBANON, Pa. (KDKA) - Five hundred new words have been added to the Scrabble dictionary.
As KDKA scrabble player Jon Delano reports, many of those words are familiar to Millennials and Gen Z'ers, but not older players like him.
Jon admits to being a casual Scrabble player, one who usually struggles with the letter Q.
Like most Scrabble players, he's happy to see more words added to the play-list, but what exactly is a "grawlix?"
"Grawlix" is one of 500 new words familiar to younger players and added to the seventh edition of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary published by Merriam-Webster and Hasbro, one of several dictionaries used by Scrabble clubs.
"All lists have to be updated because new words do come along," says Bob Hagerty, president of the South Hills Scrabble Club that plays every other Saturday afternoon at the Mt. Lebanon Public Library.
"People who join Scrabble clubs are sometimes maniacal about it and willing to memorize thousands of words, including many they don't know – many they could never define."
Hagerty has no problem with these new words like "bae" or "stan" or "ixnay" or "faux-hawk" better known to Millennials and Gen Z'ers.
Delano: "Is this a game that younger people play?"
Hagerty: "Definitely. Many people play it online in various forms. So I think that has made it more popular and exposed more people to these very handy words that you would never use in conversation but can score you a lot of points."
So now the young ones will have an advantage with words Boomers never heard, and if that gets some Boomer really hot, remember these dictionaries ban offensive words even if your home game does not.
Delano: "You can't use the f-word or the s-word? They don't count in Scrabble?"
Haggety: "Definitely not the f-word anymore. The s-word, yes, I think you can still use that."
Maybe that's good news for some.
By the way, a "grawlix" is a series of symbols that take the place of an offensive word, as in @#$%.