Your Scrabulous cheat words
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/magazine/7196488.stm Version 0 of 1. <a class="" href="/1/hi/magazine/7193576.stm">How Scrabulous has ameliorated our vocab </a> Earlier this week, we explained how cheating while playing Scrabble online has opened our eyes to some little known words. Here are the best of your favourites, sent in response to that article. The difference between Scrabble and its online equivalents such as Scrabulous is that you can look up words. No, it's not in the spirit of the game, but all of these words have been deployed by you - or your opponents - often with the use of electronic performance enhancement. <li> "My best is CARBOYED (adjective; carboy is vessel for fermenting wine, mead or beer) for a total of 194 points. Pure luck - I tried the word not believing that it would work, then I had to look it up. But the stats are there on Facebook. I don't use a word finder program but I do pick up on words used by other players who clearly are using a word finder."Nickie, Blackburn <li> "I never thought my geology degree would come in handy, but Scrabulous is brilliant for using obscure terms such as TINSTONE (another name for cassiterite). Strangely 'oolite' is allowed but 'ooids' aren't - oolite is a rock made of ooids."Simon Brown, London, UK <li> "Shortly after a Scrabulous opponent played LUTETIUM (a rare silver-white element, atomic number 71) and AIOLI (posh garlic-y mayo) he accused me of cheating because I put down 'paddy' because it also made the words ALA (wing or wing-like structure) and DIN (jumble of loud sounds) on the board: 'How did you know those were words?' I no longer gave him the benefit of the doubt after that, we've not played since."Andy, Farnham, Surrey <li> "I play regularly at the Internet Scrabble Club, and would absolutely never use a cheat site to help in a game. But one opponent who I'm sure was cheating played the extraordinary eight-letter DOGNAPER (to kidnap a dog, correct with one or two p's) across two triple word scores for 158."Patrick McGuinness, London, UK <li> "Playing against a friend educated in medicine, I was highly miffed when OOGONIA - the plural of oogonium, an immature ovum, if you're wondering - was played, scoring 46 points. Having expressed my strong feelings that it was cheating to be a doctor, my opponent suggested that I should use musical terms - I play the double bass in several rubbish orchestras - and regained my winning streak with 'baroque' for 90 points."David, Abingdon, UK <li> "I recently had GAUMING (to smudge or smear) unleashed upon me for 73 points. My opponent admitted she didn't really know the word. My friends and I have a house rule on this - it's fine to consult the list of approved two-letter words, or check whether a word is admissible if you're pretty sure you've heard it before, but we won't use the dictionary or anagrammers to fish for playable words. Still it's tempting, especially if you're losing badly."Scot, Carrboro, NC, US <li> "My Greek cousin has been coming up with words such as VOES (inlet or creek, so called in the Shetland and Orkney islands). He's fluent, but not that fluent..."Jonathan Anderson, Cambridge <li> "You can always just stick the tiles in an order that looks like it could be a word and see if it gets accepted. That's only half cheating."Don, London |