Scrabble Controversy...New Words

When I read that they were adding controversial new "Q Without U" words, I knew some would relate to Islam, and naturally I was right ;) Anyway, here's the piece, with my comments.

Scrabble, one of the last bastions of grammatical purism in a world overrun by cell phone text abbreviations, is capitulating to the times.

The board game plans to add 3,000 new words to its official dictionary, including several slang terms like "thang" (9 points) and "grrl" (5 points) as well as pop culture touchstones, like Facebook and MySpace.

Oh FFS, "thang" and "grrl"??? NO! Fuck Scrabble. That's it, I'll never buy a new board or dictionary again. Also, Facebook and MySpace don't even QUALIFY for the game because they have capitals? Hello? WTF? (Why don't they add WTF?)

Turning the most heads is the inclusion of "innit," a condensation of "isn't it" that will earn you 5 points - and the undying hatred of any English majors who are playing along.

Innit? INNIT? Hate. Rage. Loathing. I say it occasionally conversationally, but it is NOT acceptable in a Scrabble game. Well, it is NOW; thanks, assholes.

In addition, two new "Q" words have been added that don't require a "u". "Qin" (a Chinese zither, with strings stretched across a flat box) will earn you 12 points, while "Fiqh" (an expansion of Islamic sharia law) will add 19 to your score. Each will also almost certainly have your opponents rushing to challenge the words.

Told ya'!

The push to make the game more relevant to a generation that's more familiar with "Words with Friends" is a risky one. While updating the dictionary makes it a more hip game, the move is bound to upset some fans, who have always taken pride in the fact that the game was never "dumbed down".

SOME fans? SOME? EVERYONE hates this shit. I don't give a damn what "Words with Friends" players think - some of us have been playing Scrabble for 40 or 50 or 60 YEARS and we've submitted to every bullshit change that came along. This is a step too far. Period.

The game's publishers say the additions make this the "most comprehensive Scrabble wordlist ever produced," but that's doing little to soothe some players' ruffled feathers.

"I don't like slang words at all, but if they are going to put them in we will have to use them," Jean Gallacher, of Scotland's Inverness Scrabble Club, told The Scotsman. "I think there is too much slang in the English language as it is, with the way young people are talking."

Let's face it: it might be fun to earn 12 points by laying down "blingy," but you certainly won't impress the person across that table that has just dropped "Quixotry".

BLINGY? Oh seriously, fuck this game forever.

I bet you thought I was joking about the "controversial" bit, didn't you? I really wasn't, because it's bad enough when they pull this shit, but this...no. Just no. It's a bridge too far and they know it. See, we take that shit seriously. Just think if all of a sudden there was a new poker hand in between 2 pair and 3 of a kind, like 2 pair plus one card lower than the opponent's 3 of a kind? How would you like that if you were a longtime poker player? Or some change to golf scoring that enabled you to take one stroke off your score if you make it to the next tee in 5 minutes? I mean, that's what this is like. It's bogus bullshit. Why don't they change the board? Throw in a few random triple word scores? Or take a dump in the letter bag before they ship it? Jackholes.

No Debate - More Madness

How is it that this petty dictator, this tyrant, is RAMMING this shit through WITHOUT any procedure, WITHOUT any debate, WITHOUT meaningful opposition...yet the left is stomping and screaming about the mean tone of conservative talk show hosts (while using and employing more hate-filled words and rhetoric than any talk show host ever could) and stomping and screaming about "obstructionists" who can't possibly mount a meaningful opposition even if they wanted to? What kind of la-la land are those people living in? Look, I remember Reagan being accused of bankrupting future generations as well (by people who conveniently ignored the fact that he had a completely democrat congress and senate who demanded shit spending) and of course Bush was accused of the same thing (while Clinton was lauded for a false snapshot "surplus" that was never used to pay down any actual debt) so I'm not necessarily going to complain that we can't pay for it. Which we can't. Of course calling tax cuts an "expense" is a false complaint in the first place, and measures that ACTUALLY stimulate and grow the economy (unlike runaway spending on make-work projects and earmarks and caps collapses the economy) are at least helpful in many ways. But try explaining economics to a leftist. Heh. This runaway spending is a sure recipe for quick disaster - Obama actually knows this, it seems, which is why he keeps warning us that it's going to get a lot worse. This is nothing but a reformatting of our entire personal liberties and system of self-governance and it's just being railroaded through before anyone can blink. It's tyranny, it's despotism, it's riddled with outright lies, and there is no comparison here between anything a conservative president or legislature has done in the last 30 years or even 50. Bankrupt the people, break their backs quickly and surely, like a cat with a tasty mouse, destroy property rights and personal liberties, and you're left with nothing but a petty tyrant and dictator. I don't know which of his cronies are going to be thrown to the wolves - Pelosi? Reid? But Obi-wan is angling for absolute rule here, and it's coming. Quickly. Actually it's here; we just haven't felt the pain yet. I see the curtains being drawn very quickly on this experiment that has held up pretty well for 200 years, this experiment in self-governance and curbing voracious government. It's a dark and bloody vision, but if you can't see it, I have to think you're blind. We didn't know for sure he would do all this, but we know now. And some of you have the gall, the balls, to complain that we wanted it to fail. If you didn't, you're a fool.

Do not forget to go to Copious Dissent so that our friend in the video gets credit for his courage.

Condi freaking Rice. A woman of TRUE class and eternal good taste. She never had to raise her voice (as Coulter does) but Joy Behar sat there like a stunned mule on tranqs, her jaw unhinged, unable to say a WORD. I like that. "You don't CALL him George." Classic!!!

One of those times when the collective IQ on the stage rocketed into the triple digits.

Under the Tyranny of Cities

Both movies deal with the depravity of suburbia

one reason that Frank handicaps his and April’s attempts to get out of the stifling suburban life

They spoke to me both because I was white and suburban and because I wanted the fuck out of that world.

"Flyover" country

Feminists. Urban (sneer.) Suburban (sneer.) How sick can someone get of THAT? I've been sick of it all my life. Even at the height of my leftism it didn't occur to me that living in a filthy, dangerous city would be good. While I didn't relish the thought of the inconveniences of really urban life (at the same time admiring those who engage in agriculture and brave those inconveniences to provide the ACTUAL necessities of life), there is happily a middle ground here in the United States and other affluent, free-market cultures. We have the option to take in a Broadway play and be home in bed by one AM. But it goes beyond that. How very far we've come that the scales have actually tipped - and in the WRONG direction from what our founding fathers intended for our liberties and our prosperity and happiness. Harken to Thomas Jefferson for a moment, a little sanity injected into the sneering hatred of the urbanites for those of us who choose a better life (with zomg a backyard and a patch of - gasp! - GRASS!)

To James Madison Paris, Dec. 20, 1787

DEAR SIR, -- My last to you was of Oct. 8 by the Count de Moustier. Yours of July 18. Sep. 6. & Oct. 24. have been successively received, yesterday, the day before & three or four days before that....

.... I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe. Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.

Jefferson was a prophet as well as a statesman.

The map makes it abundantly clear that we ARE under the tyranny of the population of overcrowded **cities** and have become, possibly irretrievably, corrupt.