c4countdown

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... hange.html


Imagine Countdown resorting to this.......?

How many proper nouns are actually in the dictionary

And how many have been removed from the new dictionary

And would the powers that be ever consider allowing proper nouns on the show

James Robinson wrote:How many proper nouns are actually in the dictionary

And how many have been removed from the new dictionary

And would the powers that be ever consider allowing proper nouns on the show

I've no idea how many there are. I think they tend to be the proper nouns that we all use generically, ie Sellotape, Vaseline and Hoover, which i can sort of understand. Under the new Scrabble rules you can put down Starbucks, Durex, Persil and bands like Abba, Metallica and Jedward, which seems a little ridiculous.

Will we change our rules to follow suit...........? Only when hell freezes over.

D Eadie wrote:Will we change our rules to follow suit...........? Only when hell freezes over.

Good on you, Damian. Nice to see you sticking to good old tradition.

D Eadie wrote:

James Robinson wrote:How many proper nouns are actually in the dictionary

And how many have been removed from the new dictionary

And would the powers that be ever consider allowing proper nouns on the show

I've no idea how many there are. I think they tend to be the proper nouns that we all use generically, ie Sellotape, Vaseline and Hoover, which i can sort of understand. Under the new Scrabble rules you can put down Starbucks, Durex, Persil and bands like Abba, Metallica and Jedward, which seems a little ridiculous.

Will we change our rules to follow suit...........? Only when hell freezes over.

Think of the money that could be made from sponsorship from say Google or Wikipedia.
You could give Susie a laptop (with product placement being allowed that could be lucrative too.)

All the newspaper articles are fighting the "dumbing down" angle, which isn't particularly compelling to me. But how are you supposed to do challenges? Just seems like a recipe for tedious arguments.

Charlie Reams wrote:All the newspaper articles are fighting the "dumbing down" angle, which isn't particularly compelling to me. But how are you supposed to do challenges? Just seems like a recipe for tedious arguments.

You could create scrabble variants like using a BT phonebook as the 'dictionary' or say, a world atlas or Who's Who.

Charlie Reams wrote:All the newspaper articles are fighting the "dumbing down" angle, which isn't particularly compelling to me. But how are you supposed to do challenges? Just seems like a recipe for tedious arguments.

This. How on earth would you decide what is valid or invalid?

Charlie Reams wrote:And of course, newspapers have grossly misrepresented the actual situation.

Well i DID read it in the Daily Mail.............

Damian, you really should know better than to report such complete shite without checking the facts first.

The Daily Mail? Oh dear...

This is the current statement on the ABSP website:

6th April 2010

STATEMENT: Proposed rule changes for new Scrabble spin-off

The ABSP has been contacted by several news associations looking for comment on Mattel's decision to launch a Scrabble spin-off game later in the year which will allow capitalised pronouns and other rule variations such as playing words backwards.

We would like to make it clear that these rule changes only relate to a new Scrabble brand product which will be available in shops in time for Christmas. The original Scrabble game is entirely unaffected.

Further clarification can be obtained from Mattel's Scrabble representative, Philip Nelkon, on 01628 500283 or through the ABSP Publicity Officer, Stewart Holden, who can be reached on 07971 634098.

**

And here's an email from Mattel representative Philip Nelkon to the Scrabble mailing list earlier this morning:

Hi

I understand that a number of you have been contacted by the media concerning the new version of Scrabble. Just to explain and in case you are asked to do an interview : -

This is a new edition of the classic game that introduces new twists on the classic rules. One of the new rules includes the opportunity for players to play proper nouns and there are others included such as playing a word backwards, introducing a new dimension of play. The new rules provide a great new opportunity for families to get involved in word play.

The classic game will still be available and will not change.

……………………...

Thanks as always for your help and apologies if you have been 'hounded'. That was not our intention.

Philip

**

END

It was reported almost identically in several newspapers, so there's not much more we could have done to verify it.

Charlie Reams wrote:It was reported almost identically in several newspapers, so there's not much more we could have done to verify it.

Spin-off or no spin-off, the point still stands as regards "how do you decide what is valid?"

Jon Corby wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:It was reported almost identically in several newspapers, so there's not much more we could have done to verify it.

Spin-off or no spin-off, the point still stands as regards "how do you decide what is valid?"

The ODE does list some proper nouns, so you could work with those. It would be pretty weird though.

Jon Corby wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:It was reported almost identically in several newspapers, so there's not much more we could have done to verify it.

Spin-off or no spin-off, the point still stands as regards "how do you decide what is valid?"

One can only assume that players must agree what 'dictionary' to use.
I like the idea of using Google or Wiki to verify challenges.

Stewart Holden wrote:Damian, you really should know better than to report such complete shite without checking the facts first.

Ah, so before anyone ever copies a link into a website from a national newspaper, they have to validate the contents. Don't be ridiculous.

It'll perhaps become multilingual as well. You may not be able to use the Polish word for 'dog', but presumably you can use the Polish word for 'Warsaw'. Or all those other Polish towns and villages with no English translation.

Russian or Greek towns could be more problematical, though.

Is 'Bombay' still valid?

Sometimes me and a mate allow ourselves one premier league footballer per game just for shits and giggles. They're basically just hoping to sell the game to people who wouldn't otherwise have the patience to see a game through i suppose. Honestly thought it must have been an April fool by the makers that fooled the mail a week later before the lads posted. The floating words bit is pretty silly. I suppose you could use google as your new dictionary.

I don't see the harm in allowing people to use their own rules. Just not sure how this translates into a new 'version' of the game. You can play the proper names rule with any old Scrabble set.
In any case, it's good publicity for the game itself, which must be suffering in terms of sales these days.

A Google dictionary would be pretty interesting, accept words with at least 10K hits or something.

Haven't the rules always stated something vague like "words must be in a dictionary agreed upon by all players before the game"? This isn't really a change if that's the case.

Jon O'Neill wrote:Haven't the rules always stated something vague like "words must be in a dictionary agreed upon by all players before the game"? This isn't really a change if that's the case.

They do, but they also explicitly disallowed proper nouns, hyphenates and so on.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Jon O'Neill wrote:Haven't the rules always stated something vague like "words must be in a dictionary agreed upon by all players before the game"? This isn't really a change if that's the case.

They do, but they also explicitly disallowed proper nouns, hyphenates and so on.

Oh right. So the only difference between the games is that sentence in the rules?

Jon O'Neill wrote:Oh right. So the only difference between the games is that sentence in the rules?

IT'S A REVOLUTION IN THE SCRABBLE COMMUNITY.

There is a person, somewhere, who has actually come up with this idea, it's crazy.

Jon O'Neill wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:

Jon O'Neill wrote:Haven't the rules always stated something vague like "words must be in a dictionary agreed upon by all players before the game"? This isn't really a change if that's the case.

They do, but they also explicitly disallowed proper nouns, hyphenates and so on.

Oh right. So the only difference between the games is that sentence in the rules?

I doubt it, I can't imagine anyone would buy a board and tiles that they already own just to get a piece of paper that says "okay, you can use proper nouns now". I really hope they do something a bit more distinctive with it, but their lazy-ass Super Scrabble suggests otherwise. Still, we know from Unlimited that one small change can completely turn the game on its head.

Charlie Reams wrote:Still, we know from Unlimited that one small change can completely turn the game on its head.

I like it, play Scrabble but with the board upside down. No squares, NO LIMITS.

Michael Wallace wrote:No squares

That rules you out then!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Super Scrabble could have been a good idea but only if each player had a complete set of scrabble tiles and drew tiles from their own bag.
That would take away quite a bit of luck from the game along with making tile tracking more difficult.

D Eadie wrote:In any case, it's good publicity for the game itself, which must be suffering in terms of sales these days.

Scrabble was the #1 selling board game in the UK during 2008, for the first time in 15 years. That's not my definition of suffering.

And yes you should check that what a newspaper is reporting is actually true when it's the shitrag known as the Daily Mail!

Stewart Holden wrote: And yes you should check that what a newspaper is reporting is actually true when it's the shitrag known as the Daily Mail!

I think he was more bringing it to our attention than anything else. We all know we should take articles in such papers with a pinch of salt but Damian was just alerting us to its presence.

Stewart Holden wrote: Scrabble was the #1 selling board game in the UK during 2008, for the first time in 15 years. That's not my definition of suffering.

And yes you should check that what a newspaper is reporting is actually true when it's the shitrag known as the Daily Mail!

The song that gets to No.1 in the Music Top 40 these days only needs to shift a few thousand copies whereas it was a few hundred thousand or more back in the day. That's what i was getting at. With all the online applications for Scrabble nowadays, the board game sales must have dropped off compared to what they were 15 years ago, hence the need for the game to re-invent itself and come up with new variants of the classic. Tell me i'm wrong....?

As for checking the Daily Mail mate, you've got a serious delusional misconception that i actually give a toss what was written and whether or not it's true. I merely copied the link from the newspaper into this forum. How you can possibly have a go at me for that is beyond any level of reasoning. I've just heard that actor Corin Redgrave has died (allegedly of course), but before discussing it with anyone i suppose i'd better wait for a copy of the death certificate to arrive in the post.....................

Kirk Bevins wrote:

Stewart Holden wrote: And yes you should check that what a newspaper is reporting is actually true when it's the shitrag known as the Daily Mail!

I think he was more bringing it to our attention than anything else. We all know we should take articles in such papers with a pinch of salt but Damian was just alerting us to its presence.

LOL Kirk, the way Stewart is bitching about it you'd have thought i wrote the article myself.
I think, as ABSP publicity officer, he's just about had the busiest day of his life and is perhaps struggling to cope with it. Bless.

D Eadie wrote:

Stewart Holden wrote: Scrabble was the #1 selling board game in the UK during 2008, for the first time in 15 years. That's not my definition of suffering.

And yes you should check that what a newspaper is reporting is actually true when it's the shitrag known as the Daily Mail!

The song that gets to No.1 in the Music Top 40 these days only needs to shift a few thousand copies whereas it was a few hundred thousand or more back in the day. That's what i was getting at. With all the online applications for Scrabble nowadays, the board game sales must have dropped off compared to what they were 15 years ago, hence the need for the game to re-invent itself and come up with new variants of the classic. Tell me i'm wrong....?

I don't think Mattel would be that bothered if they're making more money equivalently through the online applications and licensing for computer games.

D Eadie wrote: LOL Kirk, the way Stewart is bitching about it you'd have thought i wrote the article myself.
I think, as ABSP publicity officer, he's just about had the busiest day of his life and is perhaps struggling to cope with it. Bless.

That would be about right, yes

SH

Stewart Holden wrote:Damian, you really should know better than to report such complete shite without checking the facts first.

The Daily Mail? Oh dear...

This is the current statement on the ABSP website:

6th April 2010

STATEMENT: Proposed rule changes for new Scrabble spin-off

The ABSP has been contacted by several news associations looking for comment on Mattel's decision to launch a Scrabble spin-off game later in the year which will allow capitalised pronouns and other rule variations such as playing words backwards.

We would like to make it clear that these rule changes only relate to a new Scrabble brand product which will be available in shops in time for Christmas. The original Scrabble game is entirely unaffected.

Further clarification can be obtained from Mattel's Scrabble representative, Philip Nelkon, on 01628 500283 or through the ABSP Publicity Officer, Stewart Holden, who can be reached on 07971 634098.

**

And here's an email from Mattel representative Philip Nelkon to the Scrabble mailing list earlier this morning:

Hi

I understand that a number of you have been contacted by the media concerning the new version of Scrabble. Just to explain and in case you are asked to do an interview : -

This is a new edition of the classic game that introduces new twists on the classic rules. One of the new rules includes the opportunity for players to play proper nouns and there are others included such as playing a word backwards, introducing a new dimension of play. The new rules provide a great new opportunity for families to get involved in word play.

The classic game will still be available and will not change.

……………………...

Thanks as always for your help and apologies if you have been 'hounded'. That was not our intention.

Philip

**

END

"Why have Mattel bothered with this?", is my reaction. Families and friends often play board games to 'house rules' sometimes varying wildly from the rules in the box. So why bring out the same game with different rules? For publicity (seems to be working!) and squeezing a bit more profit out of it presumably.

Glad to hear that ABSP games will still adhere to the original rules.