From: ritanorr@netaxis.com (Rita Norr)
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 16:21:01 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Us and Them and a FOO
Message-id: <199709292021.QAA16087@davinci.netaxis.COM>

I have been very quiet on this issue so far through hundreds of posts. However, I agree 100% with your post and with Chris Lennon's response to it.

What are people thinking when they talk about a watered down SOWPODS?? I thought Scrabble players were supposed to be a logical bunch?? How can we expect 90% of the other countries (who already play SOWPODS) to accept some doctored up version of SOWPODS the Americans cook up?? Who do we think we are anyhow?? It makes me think of the scene in KING & I (which I just saw on Broadway last week) where little Thai students are shocked when the new British teacher shows them a map of the world and they discover they AREN'T the largest or only country in the world. WAKE UP AMERICA ... you can't start telling the Brits, Aussies, South Africans, etc. what are "common words"!!!

I think we either keep the OSPD the way it is and accept the fact we will be an isolated country in terms of Scrabble (and make it difficult for our team to be competitive), or we switch to SOWPODS the as it currently exists. [Perhaps in the distant future, as Joel suggested, some INTERNATIONAL Dictionary Committe could clean it up.] It is completely pointless to switch to some modified SOWPODS [the exception being, of course, if we just added all SOWPODS twos & threes to our word source which someone {Ron?) suggested].

As to Mike Baron's suggestion of using the intersection of OSW and OSPD, like a Venn diagram -- Mike, you're a great guy but you must be crazy!! You'd be having words like AAH, HEH, JIN, SPAZ, PREZ, etc challenged off. You'd be surprised by how many words YOU think are "common" that the Brits don't think are "common"! Hopefully that suggestion was tongue in cheek! Rita