Official Scrabble Players Dictionary
ISBN 978-0-87779-596-4 (sixth mass-market-paperback edition) | | |
793.734 |
The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary or OSPD is a dictionary developed for use in the game Scrabble, by speakers of American and Canadian English.
History
Background and creation
The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary was first published in 1978 through the efforts of the National Scrabble Association (NSA) Dictionary Committee and Merriam-Webster, primarily in response to a need for a word authority for NSA-sanctioned clubs and tournaments. Prior to its publication, Scrabble clubs and tournaments used Funk & Wagnalls Standard College Dictionary as an official word source, but as tournament play grew, this source proved unsatisfactory. The inclusion of foreign words such as "Ja" and "Oui", the exclusion of common words such as "coven" and "surreal", and a lack of clear guidance on the creation of comparative terms, were all problematic for Scrabble players.[1]
Games manufacturers
The compilation was produced by hand and many errata and omissions were later discovered. For example, the word granola was present in all five nominated dictionaries but not in the OSPD. A second edition, OSPD 2, was released in 1991. The current edition is OSPD 7, released in November 2022.
Although OSPD bears the name Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, no country’s competitive organization lists the OSPD as its official dictionary; the NASPA Word List is the official word list for tournament Scrabble in the United States, Canada, Thailand and Israel.[2] Merriam-Webster markets the OSPD as ideal for school and family use.
Offensive words
In 1993 a Virginia woman found several
She wrote to several social justice organizations, and the
Fourth edition
A fourth edition of the dictionary was published by Hasbro in 2005, which contained around 4000 additional words, including strategically useful two-letter words "QI" and "ZA".
Fifth edition
A fifth edition was published on August 6, 2014. New words include the two-letter words "DA", "GI", "PO", and "TE". A contest[6] to nominate and choose a new word to add to the lexicon was held online, and "GEOCACHE" was voted into the new lexicon.[7]
Sixth edition
The sixth edition was released on September 24, 2018. 300 new words were added, including "OK", "EW", "ZEN", "EMOJI", "FACEPALM", and "QAPIK".[8]
Seventh Edition
The seventh edition was released on November 15, 2022, adding about 500 new words. Included in this edition are "YEEHAW," "ZOOMER," "BAE," and "DUMPSTER," which was previously considered a trademark.[9]
See also
- Collins Scrabble Words ("CSW", formerly "SOWPODS")
- NASPA Word List ("NWL", formerly "OTCWL", "OWL", "TWL")
References
- Citations
- ^ a b Fatsis, Word Freak, p. 143.
- ^ "The Israeli Scrabble Association". Archived from the original on 2007-07-19. Retrieved 2006-09-26.
- ISBN 978-0-87779-120-1.
- ^ a b "How Controversy Changed SCRABBLE". April 2010.[unreliable source?]
- ISBN 978-0-547-52431-3.
- ^ Fatsis, Stefan (14 March 2014). "Bestie, Ew, Slumdog, Twerk". Slate. Retrieved 14 March 2014.
- ^ "Geocache beats out retweet, cosplay as new Scrabble word". Retrieved 23 May 2014.
- ^ "Yowza! 300 new words added to Scrabble dictionary". The Guardian. 24 September 2018. Retrieved 24 September 2018.
- ^ "'Yeehaw, bae,' official Scrabble dictionary adds 500 new words". PBS. 16 November 2022. Retrieved 25 November 2022.
- Bibliography
- Fatsis, Stefan (2002). ISBN 9780224060615.