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BGonline.org Forums
SMITH and JONES
Posted By: Nack Ballard In Response To: SMITH and JONES (Timothy Chow)
Date: Tuesday, 21 February 2017, at 1:58 a.m.
Well, I learned something. I didn't know that his middle name was Merrill.
That information was provided in the Wikipedia link beneath my opening poem. However, I suspect Tim was letting me know that he had figured out the extra little puzzle embedded in my story (without giving it away to those who were still pondering or who hadn't paid close enough attention).
Anything buried in the dialectical vocabulary? I spotted at least one non-SOWPODS word.
Tim refers to the merger of the British dictionary OSW (Official Scrabble Words) and the American dictionary OSPD (Official Scrabble Players Dictionary). Someone combined anagrams of the acronyms some 30 years ago, and before long the SOWPODS term caught on. (I think the British have since changed to "CSW" for Current Scrabble Words, but would the combined term be WSCPODS or COWPiSSeD?)
Several months before each biannual World Scrabble Championship (the first of these held in 1991), the top Scrabble players from the U.S. and U.K. (and later other nations) crammed tens of thousands of the unfamiliar words from the other's dictionary, and then attempted to "unlearn" them after the event so that they would not accidentally play them in domestic tournaments. And then relearn them at the next WSC cycle (or other international event). Talk about "barmy."
On my flash cards, I wrote British words in red and kept the American words in black, and used additional tricks such as hundreds of two-tiered "add-em-on-ics," which are anamonics with British add-ons. [An anamonic (anagram mnemonic) tells you that a specified (six- or) seven-letter stem combines with (and only with) any one of the letters in a key phrase to create (seven- or) eight-letter words. For example, knowing DAMOSEL = PRIZED GALS conjures up MALPOSED, EARLDOMS, MELODIAS, DAMOZELS, SOMEDEAL, DOLMADES, GLADSOME, ALAMODES, SLALOMED and DAMOSELS. You can bingo with any seven letters from any of those words in your rack with the eighth letter on the board, and you needn't waste your time with any non-phrase letter (or you can confidently challenge any such outlier off the board).]
So many of the UK-only words stuck with me -- as much as possible in a separate compartment of my brain. :) Some I looked up recently and learned the definition for the first time (then decided if they would fit into the story). Others exist in both lexicons but just seem like words the Brits like to use. I lived in England during two of my impressionable years (Cambridge, around age 12), and during that short time I grew very fond of the British accent and speaking style.
If you are interested in seeing the British lexicon (CSW), try clicking here, then on the database tab. I haven't signed up there yet, but it looks easy to do (and free).
Nack
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