You wouldn’t think a bunch of Scrabble players would be so drug dependent, but it’s a fact. The drug of choice is qat, an alternative spelling of khat, a plant found in Africa and Arabia whose leaf is chewed as a stimulant.
The reason qat is so popular with word freaks is that among the handful of allowable words on a Scrabble board that take a Q but no U, qat is the easiest one to play.
In fact, among the 2,000 or so dues-paying members of the National Scrabble Association, qat is possibly the most frequently played word in Scrabble tournaments.
Tournament players largely consider the Q a liability, and they tend to play it immediately or, if they can’t find a place to play it, trade it in and sacrifice a turn.
But tournament Scrabble players might be able to largely kick their qat habit, thanks to qi.
Qi – pronounced chee – is defined in the “Official Scrabble Players Dictionary” as “the vital force that in Chinese thought is inherent in all things.”
Qi will be among 3,325 words added in the fourth edition of the “OSPD,” in bookstores now. The dictionary ($24.95 hardcover, $7.50 paperback) lists acceptable Scrabble words of two to eight letters.
Acceptable words of nine or more letters are in a separate list.
The new words are now considered acceptable in tournament play.
Another potent new word will be za, a slang term for pizza. Never before have two-letter words with either the Q or the Z – the two highest-value tiles, at 10 points apiece – been acceptable.
Joe Edley, director of clubs and tournaments for the Scrabble association and a three-time national Scrabble champ, said that among all those 3,000-plus new words, there’s no arguing which one packs the most punch.
“The biggest, obviously, is qi, and to a lesser extent, za,” Edley said.
You don’t have to be a tournament player to take advantage of the new words. Just play the game – and agree on the OSPD as your dictionary of reference.
So, the next time you sit down for a game of Scrabble, grab some za, and if you pull the Q late in a game, remember: Breathe easy.
New ‘Q’ words – Acceptable words that use Q but not QU: faqir, qat, qaid, qanat, qindar, qintar, qiviut, qoph, qwerty, sheqel, suq, tranq.
To order the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary through the National Scrabble Association, go to scrabbleassociation.com/ wordgear, click on “Word Gear catalog,” then click on “Books.”
On the Web – For more information about tournaments, the dictionary and many more Scrabble-related topics, go to scrabble-assoc.com.
At a glance – Besides qi and za, three other two-letter words – fe, ki and oi – soon will be acceptable, according to the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary. There will be 41 new three-letter words, among them def, vid, duh and app, and 126 four-letter words, including blog, zine, goth and perv.
Here’s the rest of the breakdown:
There are 289 new five-letter words (including skank); 540 six-letter words (doodoo, doowop); 901 seven-letter words (suckier, ziplock); and 1,333 eight-letter words (snarfing, snarkily).
