Those New Scrabble Words Are Only Good Outside the U.S.!

Thanks to an informative article from Slate's Stefan Fatsis, outlining a very brief history of Scrabble licensing, it appears that our recent reader alert to word-up on newly introduced Scrabble words will be of little use to our North American readers. In the United States, the Scrabble word list is not governed by the Collins English Dictionary.

As Fatsis explains:

While 3,000 words are indeed being added to a Scrabble lexicon, it's the lexicon that governs play outside of North America, the Collins English Dictionary. Here in the United States and in Canada, where the game is owned by Hasbro, competitive Scrabble is ruled by a book known as the Official Tournament and Club Word List, or OWL (along with an addendum of 10- to 15-letter words known as the Long List). The over-the-counter source for school and home play, purged of "offensive" words, is The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary. The North American lexicons are published by Merriam-Webster.

Of course, this makes sense as UK and US English have a range of variables. It also means that a majority of our readers who are Scrabble fans don't actually have any new words to play with.

(With thanks to Slate)