Scrabble babble

Thanks to SIL who introduced me to Words, a Scrabble-like game on the iPhone, I've had my face glued to my phone, 24 hrs a day (okay, almost), for the past two weeks!! :)

It's like Scrabble, only you get to play online with friends. Or, if you're not getting enough action, you can even play with random strangers, most of whom are from the USA who start playing just when you're about to sleep at night!! A word of caution; it is highly addictive.

One good thing about this game, as opposed to the Scrabble board, is that you can try creating any word with your given tiles and will be informed if it is non-existent! In Scrabble, I think you can get penalised if you are challenged by your opponent. It does feel like cheating sometimes when you try, in desperation, to make a word using just about every possible combination imaginable of your 7 letters!

It is however very educational indeed, as you learn new words which you never even knew existed! I decided to look up some of the words we used.

Here are some examples:

What the heck is "nene"? Sounds like "grandma" in Russian or something. Well, apparently, it's a wild goose, native to Hawaii, where it's the state bird!! Hooray! Let's hear it for the nene!

Now, Q is a good letter to have, because it is worth 10 points! Placing it wisely can put you in the lead. However, if you have a Q, but you do not have a U, you're basically dead meat. In the English language, Q and U go together like Siamese twins. But do not fret, thanks to the wonderful Chinese, we now have the word "qi" in the English dictionary!

"Qi", pronounced as "chi" is what you call an energy field or flow or something like that. (You don't have to know the meaning, just know that it exists and it will get you a minimum of 11 points!!)

Here's "qi" again... it's just so darn handy!

"Frig" means to waste time and there are also other meanings which you will have to look up for yourself! :)

"Elan" is a noun meaning: dash; impetuous ardor: to dance with great elan.
(Eh? Whatever, like I said, just know it exists...)


Alrightie, now here's my favourite:

"Catbird" comes to save the day!! Actually, even with this supercallifragilistic word, I still lost the game!! Boohoo... SIL's friend is just so hard to beat! Actually, he's the one who got SIL addicted to it in the first place, so he's the one to blame for all this madness!

Oh yes, catbirds. Several unrelated groups of songbirds are called catbirds because of their wailing calls, which resemble a cat's meowing. Well, whaddya know...

And they're cute too!


Okay, I have to go, my phone is beeping...