Today while searching through a vast array of blogs I found a link to this story.
That’s right word-lovers, in the newest version of Scrabble, the use of proper nouns will be permitted. That means that Shakira, Nike, and Titicaca are all acceptable words to play.
Given this recent development I feel like it is an appropriate day to mourn the continued loss of our culture, language, and overall standards as a civilzation. We have come to reduce everything to the lowest common denominator and no longer challenge people to be the best and brightest that they can be. As a society, we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings so we placate the masses with the idea that you can do anything or be anything if you feel like it (instead of instilling the idea that you can accomplish many great things if you work hard and educate yourself).
So, instead of challenging people to learn new words and clever game play in order to get a 117 word score, you can simply find a celebrity name, or place name with a few z’s and a q in it and cash in. The name Zaquir could fetch a pretty number of points – and who is going to question if I just made that name up? As long as someone somewhere has that name, it is fair game… and a quick google search shows me that some people do have it. There. I just got 102 points if I hit a double letter score and triple word score!
So, Scrabble. I know this may not seem like a big deal, but please, don’t allow us to lower our standards and expectations even further. We need you to push us to be better, smarter, and not rely on words like Bape to get ahead in life.
