Today (1st May 2019) – it has been announced that new words can be used in the popular board game of Scrabble – these are words that have become common in our modern world.

I don’t know about you, but I do love a game of scrabble, even though I’m not exactly Stephen Fry when it comes to long intelligent words, I can put together a few letters to make something resembling a word.

I used to play Scrabble with my mum, but she used to get a bit impatient when I took a long time to choose my word and she would say helpfully, “Do you want me to have a look at your letters?” in a way that meant, “For god’s sake, hurry up and put your word down,” and as soon as I did, she would lay hers down, so we would then be back to square one with me staring at my rack of letters again…

Did you know that there are over a million Scrabble tiles missing in the world? They have been lost down the sides of sofas, underneath rugs and carpets or even eaten by children and pets!

So here is a sample of the new words which have been allowed, with the points that you would get (not including double word scores, etc):

• Agender – of a person who does not identify with a gender (9 points)
• Antivaxxer – person opposed to vaccination (19 points)
• Burquini – swimming costume covering the whole body apart from the face, hands and feet (19 points)
• Fatberg – large mass of fat in a sewer (13 points)
• Hench – fit and muscular (13 points)
• Manspreading – when a male passenger spreads his legs into the seats beside him (18 points)
• Remainer – a person who remains (10 points)
• Upskirting – taking photographs under a woman’s skirt or dress without consent (17 points)
• Yowza – used to express enthusiasm or excitement (20 points)

The highest score ever recorded for a single word was 1782 points and that word was, wait for it….  Oxyphenbutazone – this was used in a competition and gained those points by playing it across the top of a board and hitting three triple word scores, whilst also making seven new words vertically – clever so and so!

So, just remember these new words when you’re sat staring at your rack of letters – my tip would be Yowza, especially on a triple word score which would score 60 points and that would allow you to shout out, “Yowza,” when they read out your score!!