#Hasbro scrabble dictionary how to#

“I was livid,” Grad told a local newspaper. When Grad heard from two elderly Jewish friends that this racial epithet could be played on Scrabble boards, writes journalist Stefan Fatsis in his history of Scrabble, “she was horrified.”įurther research revealed that the Scrabble dictionary contained a number of other racist and derogatory words. For Judith Grad, a Virginian art gallery owner, the word that started it all was “JEW,” used not as a recognized term for a people, but as a slur defined as “to bargain with–an offensive term.” That dictionary, which was based on the Merriam-Webster dictionary, contained a number of words that many people would deem offensive in some or all usages. The genesis of the Scrabble Dictionary War (as it may be deemed by future historians) was this: in 1993, the original Official Scrabble Dictionary was a player’s tool of choice.

It’s also the source of a huge controversy among the players of the game that Alfred Mosher Butts, born on this day in 1899, invented. The list includes racial epithets, curse words and other words deemed too offensive for gameplay. Some of those players would say the dictionary is missing something: 167 words you can’t play in a non-tournament Scrabble game.

#Hasbro scrabble dictionary how to#

If you play Scrabble casually, you use the OSPD3.Īmong the kinds of Scrabble players who compete in tournaments, that’s how to refer to the Official Scrabble Player’s Dictionary, Third Edition.