Tuesday, April 6, 2010

The Dumbing Down Of America

Throw out the dictionary!  In a mind-boggling development, Mattel has decided to change the rules of one of my favorite games.





According to the BBC,

The rules of word game Scrabble are being changed for the first time in its history to allow the use of proper nouns, games company Mattel has said.
Place names, people's names and company names or brands will now count.

What?!?  Are you kidding me?  Almost any combination of seven letters would now be playable.  Have you seen what people name their kids?  "Why yes, florrie, there IS a guy named X-L-P-R-O-T-Z somewhere in the world!  His mama calls him Zelprots!  Zelprots the Third, to be precise.  I win!  Hahaha!"

ARGHH!

And how about last names?   For example, the surname Bazzaz?  35 points, thank you very much.

Challenge of the day:  who can come up with the most points for a band name?  Remember, no more than seven letters.  Here's the letter values:

10 points: Q and Z     


8 points: J and X

5 points: K

4 points: H, F, W, Y, and V

3 points: C, M, B, and P


2 points: D and G


All other letters are worth one point.  


Ready, set, go!





33 comments:

  1. I'll start. How about Styx? 14 points!

    Take that, Mr. Roboto!

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  2. Has something been changed in Blogger? I just tried to do a post from my work PC, and it will not any longer allow me to do anything in the 'Edit HTML' screen.

    I thought it was Ubuntu at home, but this PC is Windows.

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  3. Oh, and back on topic, my scrabble games will never include proper names.

    I am disgusted by yet another company pandering to the post-literates.

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  4. Why not just permit LOLcat spelling? That would make it easier, no?

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  5. DWT, fwiw, I just edited one of my own posts in "Edit HTML" mode and it worked just fine... ?!

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  6. ZzTop - 25 points :-)

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  7. DJ Jazzy F

    img:"http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y117/floranista/angel_smile.gif"

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  8. Lyana and Florrie's don't count 'cos there is only one z in Scrabble, so there!

    Boyzone! I win! 21 (legitimate points)

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  9. Ha! Shows what I know - I had no idea how many of what letters were in the game!

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  10. Good one, Fay!

    Florrie, is that a REAL band? Because I'm really giggling...

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  11. Are there three Y's in scrabble?

    Syzygys.
    1+4+10+4+2+4+1 = 26.

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  12. Damn. There's only two Ys... Oh well.

    My method is simply to think of all the messed up words I know, and then see if they are band names... if they are really messed up and cool, then very likely some band uses it as a name, obscure though they may be.

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  13. If we can dispense with counting the leading particle ("The") towards the letter count, then...

    the skinnyz.

    1+5+1+1+1+4+10 = 23

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  14. Method 2: troll through your local alt weekly newspaper for all the crazy bands that are too loud to listen to any more...

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  15. OK, blogger is going completely bonkers on me again.

    I'll just add that I've googled xlprotz and there is only one reference on the whole of teh interwebz... and that reference is to this post.

    You know what that means? It means that xlprotz is potentially valuable as a trademark! For an oil company, hedge fund, or desert topic or floorwax ingredient.

    Just sayin'.

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  16. Heh heh, Fay eked out a win over lewy :-)

    Lady red, I was thinking DJ Jazzy Jeff but it was too many letters. I didn't know about duplicate letters either, I only have a scrabble board for solving anagrams (and company).

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  17. desert topic or floorwax ingredient

    Didn't you mean to say "dessert topping", lewy?

    img:"http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y117/floranista/desserttopping2.jpg"

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  18. OK, I'll quit picking on you now :-)

    Good night, all! See you tomorrow...

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  19. I need a character name. Anyone got one? (since y'all are inventing words). I would use the same ole name I always use (monkeyweather( but it won't fit.
    My son got me World of Warcraft for my birthday. He has this idea that it would be a cool bonding exercise for us to play WoW together. I am....underwhelmed! And have to come up with a name for meself! :O&

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  20. p.s. I think Poland must have bought out the game Scrabble. Because of all nations on earth, they are the ones that will benefit the most from these new rules.

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  21. How about monkther? It's like taking your nick and squishing it. :)

    Or monker? monkweath? weathonk? onker? onkey? :D

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  22. In the age of Google, delusions of originality do not last long.

    The "Darth Mom" moniker is taken.

    Actually, this woman sounds interesting. Maybe we should invite her over.

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  23. Yes, we should invite her over for a cuppa Tetley's. Darth Mom rocks!

    Should I email her and ask if we can publish her "rules" here? Or will she kick my ass? :D

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  24. I'm sure she'd be cool with it... but maybe let afw ask her... ;)

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  25. I third the nomination for Darth Mom. lewy, you the man.

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  26. Darth Mom - :OD
    Very cute!
    How about monkther? It's like taking your nick and squishing it. :)
    Or monker? monkweath? weathonk? onker? onkey?

    Hehe - my thoughts exactly, LadyR. I had to sign one on quickly (because you know we just HAD TO PLAY NOW!) and I found that I had eleven letters so I simply removed an E. Monkyweather.
    Can't believe I am so lazy that I couldn't be bothered to come up with something else, but there it is.

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  27. Well, as with any story reported by "Time' magazine, a ton of salt is required.

    It turns out that Milton/Bradley is not changing the rules of Scrabble but bringing out a new game, called 'Trickster', which has much looser rules, and allows weird things like stealing an opponents tile, as well as proper nouns in certain circumstances.

    And I was trying to add a link to Michelle Malkins site about it, but of course I STILL can't do links!

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  28. And, Monkeyweather, if you still like the idea of Darth Mom, you could formalize it a bit, and sign in as Darth Mater.

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  29. Thank Heaven I never looked up any of my screen names before using them, or I would current be known as BLANK.

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  30. DWT - Darth Mater would be awesome, because it would combine the reference to the Sith of Star Wars with the Honored Maters of Frank Herbert's Dune series.

    (Honored Maters are chicks you don't want to run into. They'll blow up your planet or kick you to death. Or both.)

    Completely badass. You have profound moniker karma.

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