Scrabble boggles the mind

Angenrheidiaeth!

No need to offer any complementary gesundheits here.

Today’s topic is how to become a Welsh Scrabble champion. Today’s motive is to make the copy editor cringe.

When it comes to playing board games, I more closely resemble a well-behaved chimp than a puzzle genius. All of my “favorites” somehow involve speaking, writing, forming words or basically communication in general.

I grew up in a house that could only handle intricate games like Sorry, You Chump! Most of you know this game simply as Sorry, but my brother is mean.

Anyway, my all-time worst board game performances have occurred while playing Scrabble. I’m convinced this game was invented to give nerdy English majors something to do between classes. I have no ill-will toward lexicographers, especially since they could abuse me verbally without my knowledge.

“What are you looking at? You moronically enhanced ignoramus!” I’d enthusiastically reply, “Gesundheit!” Then I’d walk away feeling very sheepish. And by sheepish, you can be assured that I meant to say, “Baaaa!”

However, like previously implied, I don’t know very many words. In fact, I’m convinced that a degree in wizardry is required to play Scrabble.

I don’t have a neat pointy hat with stars on it, so that is why, if I had the tiles H, A, L, F, W, I and T on my board, I’d resort to playing HAT. Lucky me, I may have just scored up to 18 points!

So, now is my chance to help the rest of you moronically enhanced ignoramuses have more effective bouts with the Scrabble board.

I discovered that angenrheidiaeth, on its own, this is actually one of the highest point-scoring words in the new Welsh version of Scrabble. On its own, this also one of the least valuable bits of information you could know. By the way it means “necessity,” as in, “Look for the bare angenrheidiaeths, the simple bare angenrheidiaeths,” found in the newly released DVD, “Jungle Book Does Cardiff.”

I did find some neat word facts on the Internet. Apparently HAT isn’t always the best word to play in Scrabble.

QUARTZY is the word that can score the most points when played on its own. Incidentally, the 164-pointer is actually used in the English version of Scrabble.

OXYPHENBUTAZONE is the highest-scoring word known under American tournament Scrabble rules. It can score 1,778 points under suitably contrived circumstances.

Incidentally, these official “rules” and “circumstances” can be summarized by the following:

1) Make up a word.

2) Add three to seven extra letters to it.

3) Assign the first four-digit number that comes to mind as a score.

4) Accidentally knock the game board off the table – oops.

You see, with these rules, we can all be winners!

Boggle is another game that makes me convulse.

I remember when I was little, I was taught to read left to right across a page. Boggle requires a participant to make up words that can’t be read left to right.

Normally, I just end up staring at the sand in the timer, wishing I were an ill-behaved chimp. Then I follow step four of successful Scrabble.

My newest favorite word find is “qiviut.” No I didn’t make it up. It actually means the wool of the undercoat of a musk ox, commonly called – “fur.” Now there’s a word I can use.

In case you were curious, the longest word in any English-language dictionary is “Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this 45-letter word is the name for a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine silica dust.

I, however, think the creation of the word was made by the inhalation of something else. Incidentally, the second longest word created by disgruntled medical transcriptionists is “thatwholelungthingydiseasewordisabunchofbs” (42 letters). Lexicography Week runs all next week, with posters in the Taggart Student Center reminding everyone that not only is verbiage fun, it also sounds like a sneeze.

Gesundheit!

Garrett Wheeler is a second bachelor’s student in technical theatre design. Send any comment or column ideas to wheel@cc.usu.edu