Confessions of a hard Scrabble addict

I learnt to play Scrabble about 60 years ago. In the overheated confines of my grandfather’s office, the fumes of the oil heater cocooned the cosiness of a plump eight-year-old preparing to play an eccentric old man.

Scrabble addict Victoria Cosford.Credit: Photo Supplied

The main rules were: 1. No slang or colloquialisms. 2. No abbreviations. 3. No proper names. 4. “Foreign” words only if they had been absorbed into the English language and used commonly, such as elan. 5. No hyphenated words.

These were the days – and my grandfather was the strictest player – before Derryn Hinch released his book on Scrabble, loosening up some of the strictures and introducing the wonderful (and indeed game-changing) concept of recycling the blank.

Reading David Astle’s piece on the latest dictionary of Scrabble, written by a new generation, I felt he could have been writing about another game entirely, a game I no longer wish to play, whose rules have become so elastic and softened as to permit pretty much anything. Yes, QI (the circulating life force behind Chinese philosophy and medicine) is an infinitely useful allowance in these new rules, precluding the need for the U, which you hang on to grimly for much of the game, only to see your opponent triumphantly laying down a long Q word over a triple score.

But it’s also made the game a bit too easy, and it seems this is how New Scrabble now is. Where are the real challenges, the ones testing your vocabulary? Of course language evolves and we must stay abreast, but isn’t CONVO just an abbreviation, once sternly forbidden? It’s not a real word; it’s the lazy text messagers’ shorthand.

My friend M has a list of acceptable two-letter Scrabble words which shocked me when I first saw it. Many are obscure or archaic Scottish words, such as JO (for sweetheart or dear), or more abbreviations, or onomatopoeic sounds. We’ve come to a grudging (from my perspective) compromise when we play together, but whenever one pops up I feel all those early founding rules no longer apply.

My grandfather wouldn’t let us consult the dictionary – he had a very old battered Oxford – before putting down our word. It could be consulted only once the word had been placed, at which point the opponent could challenge it: if it was in the dictionary, the word was accepted but if not, you forfeited points for that turn. Strict!

Midway through the games (we always played two) my grandmother would wheel in the afternoon tea trolley, something she had baked such as scones or cake, a glass of cordial for the child, a pot of tea for her husband, or sherry if the afternoon was creeping on, the oil heater ticking away like a metronome. These are among my most cherished memories of a Canberra childhood.

Then, much later, after he had died, Scrabble became my mother’s and my game – more than that, especially in the last 10 years of her life, it became the way we bonded. I’d come home – from Sydney or Melbourne or overseas or, where I finally wound up, the Far North Coast – and we’d talk for a while but it wouldn’t be long before the board was dragged out gratefully, the sets becoming steadily more fancy and “deluxe” over the years, and the racks and tiles laid out. That would be it: fierce concentration, utter silence (not even Classic FM on the radio), two competitive women of about equal aptitude, one invariably sulking should the other start to win too many games.

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But at least we always agreed on the rules and exercised the same degree of purist’s rigour. And permitted each other access to the dictionary – provided it wasn’t just to browse. Over Scrabble, all our differences and mutual disappointments, increasing as the years passed, would become meaningless: this was the space in which we were closest.

During the pandemic, I began to play on my own. I’d done a bit of solitary Scrabble in the past – lonely in Italy largely – but this became a daily obsession. I’d play against Louise, which is my middle name, and played – still play – in strict accordance with the “old” rules. I never cheat. Why would I when it is I against me?

Then, the joyous discovery of M, a friend who loves Scrabble too – who also admitted to solitary games – meant that I had a real opponent. (My best Scrabble opponent of many decades lives in Sydney, so we get to have our Scrabble-athons about once a year.) I love these games with M, in spite of her regular reference to that irritating list of “Scrabble-approved” two-letter words, which I cannot bring myself to use, even in desperation.

And so I have decided to continue my practice of solitary Scrabble, Victoria against Louise, purist games played by those 60-year old rules, the ones set by the inventors of the game – although permitting myself Derryn Hinch’s recycled blanks and, if you absolutely insist, and if either of us becomes truly stuck, the word Qi.

Victoria Cosford is a Northern Rivers-based writer and the author of gastro memoir Amore and Amaretti. She is addicted to Scrabble.

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