When I left my magazine internship in Fall 2007, I wanted to stay in touch with my coworkers. But I sent no thank you notes or syrupy fan letters. Instead, I started a game of Scrabulous.
I hadn’t played Scrabble since I was a child. But, infatuated with words, I competed in spelling bees and have always valued an extensive vocabulary. There was a new Facebook app – with virtual tiles and a built-in dictionary and points calculator – and I challenged one editor to a game.
The best Scrabble players have a comprehensive vocabulary and a good linguistic understanding of how words are made; the benefit of the online game is that you can test out letter combinations that look like words because in many cases, they are. It also helps to have a strong mathematical awareness to optimize scoring.
For about a year the editor beat me soundly. We temporarily fell out of touch when Scrabulous was shut down by a lawsuit. But we resumed when Mattel’s official Scrabble Facebook app caught on. I kept losing, but I wasn’t sore over it; an established magazine editor should best me at a word game. But if I could win, what better way was there to impress a potential employer?
Besides, online Scrabble (including Lexulous, Scrabulous’ legal reincarnate) is the perfect overture into a number of relationships.
The online application connects people the way Facebook does while also showcasing “that great abstract intelligence,” according to New Yorker writer Judith Thurman.
“I have probably met more interesting strangers playing online Scrabble than I have in a lifetime of travel to exotic places,” Thurman wrote in a story about the crazed community the online revival has fostered.
Of course, besides wooing strangers, your Scrabble prowess might be the way to flirt with a crush. One friend of mine challenged someone she was dating to a “dirty” game, then opened with “SEX” for 20 points.
Facebook Scrabble has already been blamed (and lauded) as a flagrant office time-waster, including several YouTube parodies. It can also be played imperceptibly in class, barely moving your wrist, face frozen in studious concentration.
But (and don’t try this in important classes) others have remarked on the games’ powers to actually enhance the workplace.
“Playing them helps to distract my rational brain and allow me to be creative when I am writing fiction,” said Tania Hershman, author of “The White Road and Other Stories.”
Indeed, one limitation of the online game is the wide availability of word generators and other tools on the Web. The diehards don’t tolerate these devices, and neither should any self-respecting player.
Finally this winter I beat my editor. Since then, I have won a couple of times – once by nearly 200 points – and am now ranked in the top three among my friends who play.
My next move: Challenging my old boss to a game.
Medill senior Jen Wieczner can be reached at [email protected].