It’s ok to use ‘ok’ in Scrabble as the word is amongst 300 acceptable new words in the game
8982 Mins Read
Scrabble players are being given an extra 300 new words, including some long-awaited two-letter gems: OK and ew.
Merriam-Webster released the sixth edition of The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, four years after the last freshening-up.
“OK is something Scrabble players have been waiting for, for a long time,” said lexicographer Peter Sokolowski, editor at large at Merriam-Webster.
There is more good news in qapik – a unit of currency in Azerbaijan – adding to an arsenal of 20 playable words beginning with q that do not need a u.
“Every time there’s a word with q and no u, it’s a big deal,” Sokolowski said. “Most of these are obscure.”
There are other new entries Mr Sokolowski likes, from a wordsmith’s view.
“I think ew is interesting because it expresses something new about what we’re seeing in language, which is to say that we are now incorporating more of what you might call transcribed speech,” he said.
“Sounds like ew or mm-hmm, or other things like coulda or kinda. Traditionally, they were not in the dictionary but because so much of our communication is texting and social media that is written language, we are finding more transcribed speech and getting a new group of spellings for the dictionary.”
Yowza is now allowed, along with a word some might have thought was already allowed: zen. Some foreign words have been accepted into English to the degree that they are playable, for example schneid, which has German roots and is a sports term for a losing streak.
Other new acceptable words are aquafaba, beatdown, zomboid, twerk, sheeple, wayback, bokeh, botnet, emoji, facepalm, frowny, hivemind, puggle and nubber.
