Features Podcasts Family Video Comics Music Tech Science Books Film & TV Games ✚

Jill

Official "SCRABBLE Word of the Day": Dildo

David Pescovitz at 3:44 pm Sun, Feb 22, 2009

— FEATURED —

THE LATEST

Guatemala: Archive of documents from Rios Montt genocide trial, overturned 10 days after guilty verdict

THE LATEST

Guatemala: Nation's highest court throws out Ríos Montt genocide trial verdict and prison sentence

Feature

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

Book Review

The Twelve-Fingered Boy - mesmerizing YA horror novel

Book Review

Black Code: how spies, cops and crims are making cyberspace unfit for human habitation

— FOLLOW US —

Boing Boing is on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to our RSS feed or daily email.

 

— POLICIES —

Except where indicated, Boing Boing is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution

 

— FONTS —

Tweet
Kindle
Dildoscrabbb
Over at Hasbro.com right now on Sunday afternoon, the official "SCRABBLE Word of the Day" is, er, "DILDO." For 7 points. Click image above for screenshot of full Web page. Scrabble Crossword Board Game (Thanks, Jess Hemerly!)
UPDATE: Well, they've since changed the word to "Triply," but the screenshot of "DILDO" on the Hasbro.com Web page will live on in perpetuity here.

Previously:
  • Scrabble Gram suggests naughty answer - Boing Boing
  • Scrabble cufflinks - Boing Boing
  • Scrabble-tile benches - Boing Boing
  • Leet Scrabble tiles - Boing Boing
  • Crap Scrabble hand gallery - Boing Boing

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

  • Teller

    Fuckwit is a great word. And a slick way to trash-spell your opponent.

  • Beanolini

    Two things spring to mind;

    The Countdown ‘wankers’ episode, and an elderly relative asking about a Dildo rail at a DIY shop.

  • Mr_Voodoo

    “More ways to play on words” indeed. That’s a word that can be played on.

  • redmcgee

    Funny, Grandma always told me that word didn’t count…

  • Adam Fields

    My guess is that this is some sort of Oscars reference.

  • Tenn

    And I couldn’t use ‘vagina’ today because I was playing with my twelve year old brother and my mother would have said something about it. Sigh.

  • Takuan

    http://xkcd.com/492/

  • Trent Hawkins

    Murder Face aproves

  • semiotix

    I swear by all I hold dear that the following story is true.

    At the 2003 Wisconsin Dells tournament, late in the game and trailing my opponent by almost a hundred points, I had DDEILOS on my rack. I saw DILDOES immediately because in a recent friendly game I’d had a similar rack, but with a blank, and spent ten minutes trying to decide if ODDLIEST* was a word.

    The only place to play it on the board was an S-hook with GOOSE. It scored 69 points, and my opponent momentarily forgot that GOOSE can be a verb, so GOOSES isn’t just an incorrect plural. Between the points and her lost turn, I came from behind to win the game.

    It won the Best Play in my division for the tournament. I thought it was because “DILDOES/GOOSES for 69″ tells a story, but it turns out the judges just wanted to see the tournament director have to say “DILDOES” in front of the sweet little old ladies that populate Scrabble tournaments.

  • Takuan

    heh hah!

  • kentbrew

    Perhaps someone’s been messing about with Firebug?

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/kentbrew/3304202467/

  • Beanolini

    #33, John Mark Ockerbloom:

    Most tournaments use the full unexpurgated word set

    I’ve just written a script to search the tournament dictionaries, so I can present all occurences of ‘fuck’ from the US/Canada tournament list:

    : fuck
    : fucked
    : fucker
    : fuckers
    : fucking
    : fuckoff
    : fuckoffs
    : fucks
    : fuckup
    : fuckups
    : motherfucker
    : motherfuckers
    : motherfucking

    And the gratifyingly larger list from the rest of the world’s list:

    : fuck
    : fucked
    : fucker
    : fuckers
    : fucking
    : fuckings
    : fuckoff
    : fuckoffs
    : fucks
    : fuckup
    : fuckups
    : fuckwit
    : fuckwits
    : headfuck
    : headfucks
    : mindfuck
    : mindfucks
    : motherfucker
    : motherfuckers
    : motherfucking
    : starfucker
    : starfuckers
    : starfucking
    : starfuckings

  • Beanolini

    #33, John Mark Ockerbloom:

    Most tournaments use the full unexpurgated word set

    I’ve just written a script to search the tournament dictionaries, so I can present all occurences of ‘fuck’ from the US/Canada tournament list:

    : fuck
    : fucked
    : fucker
    : fuckers
    : fucking
    : fuckoff
    : fuckoffs
    : fucks
    : fuckup
    : fuckups
    : motherfucker
    : motherfuckers
    : motherfucking

    And the gratifyingly larger list from the rest of the world’s list:

    : fuck
    : fucked
    : fucker
    : fuckers
    : fucking
    : fuckings
    : fuckoff
    : fuckoffs
    : fucks
    : fuckup
    : fuckups
    : fuckwit
    : fuckwits
    : headfuck
    : headfucks
    : mindfuck
    : mindfucks
    : motherfucker
    : motherfuckers
    : motherfucking
    : starfucker
    : starfuckers
    : starfucking
    : starfuckings

  • Sean Blueart

    A snickering junior-high school “pee pee” joke does not one shred of liberty make.

  • elmow

    Here is a screenshot of the full webpage, lest anyone think the small one was Photoshopped.

  • Takuan

    but poo-poo does.

  • Manooshi

    @Semiotix #28: Good story.

    I have bittersweet feelings toward Scrabble. Not too long ago a friend bought me the game, only to immediately ‘borrow’ it. C’est le vie. Good thing they’re on the cheap.

  • A New Challenger

    Hah!

    This is how most of my games of Scrabble turn out anyway.

  • Takuan

    Newfoundland?

  • A New Challenger

    That was my second thought, Takuan, but proper names aren’t allowed in Scrabble.

  • Takuan

    t’aint no proper names on the Rock, bye!

  • Thorzdad

    You can bet some interns are going to be very, very busy this week, removing every potentially embarrassing word from the database.

  • SC_Wolf

    Hax!

  • Roger Stanton

    Grade school kids all over the country must be giggling uncontrollably over this.

  • Anonymous

    #28: “Between the points and her lost turn, I came from behind to win the game.”

    I lol’d.

    BONUS: One of my captcha “words” is “69″. I’m not kidding. This is just getting weird.

  • urederra

    @#2… not all newfoundland, just one city.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dildo,_Newfoundland_and_Labrador

    (I am picky because you post it first)

  • Anonymous

    In the Hasbro URL, it reads “adult-games”…guess they really mean that.

  • butfirst

    Aww, look at that happy little word, all cute wooden tiles at jaunty angles!

    Even if the SexIsEvilâ„¢ and OMGThinkOfTheChildrenâ„¢ Brigades come down on Hasbro like a ton of brimstone bricks and get it removed, I’m glad that some people would have learnt a new word in a frank, factual way without judgement. Triple-letter score!

  • Sean Blueart

    Point taken.

  • Johnny Cat

    Yes, Kentbrew. I knew there was trickery afoot. Firebug, eh? What will they think of next?

  • Johnny Cat

    Something strange is going on at that site. Yesterday’s word was WTF.

  • sullt

    Well the URL does say “adult-games”…

    http://www.hasbro.com/games/adult-games/scrabble/home.cfm?page=home

  • sehlat

    It’s been changed. When I had a look, it read “TRIPLY”.

  • cory

    Boooo they changed it. I think my favorite part there was the definition. Quite matter-of-fact.

  • jfrancis

    Triply here, too.

    :(

  • sleestax

    BOOOO-URNS!! They changed it already.

  • herocious

    Here’s the most comprehensive write-up I’ve found on the web about this brief lapse on Hasbro’s part. Mistah Jellyfish goes into some of the more interesting details of Scrabble’s lexical history and includes an expurgated word list! Check it out here: http://theopenend.com/2009/02/23/scrabble-an-adult-game

  • Anonymous

    I’m not sure why they changed the word, they should be proud of the word “dildo”.

    If it is in the dictionary, and can be used in the game, then own it ! Let’s not be puritan bastards.

  • oh not anymore

    Scrabble is a word game, so use any word in the dick-tionary without social restraints.

  • Takuan

    how about on-line bOINGbOING dirty scrabble?

  • Ian70

    Far as I know, Dildo -is- in the Scrabble(tm) player’s dictionary. If ya don’t like it you can go stuff something somewhere.

  • tinyhonkshus

    It’s not a very good definition, frankly. You couldn’t like, use it after a nasty accident.

  • Anonymous

    You got your dildo in my subtext!

  • Anonymous

    Oh my god! The first time I ever heard this word was when my mom played it in scrabble! haha I was like… “mommy, whats a dildo?” and she just laughed rediculously

  • poslfit

    I would claim that the competing National SCRABBLE Association Word of the Day

    http://www.scrabbleassociation.com/cgi-bin/wotd.pl

    is superior because its words are hand-picked, but fear that boingboing readers might be able to find something vaguely salacious about today’s word: FLYBLOW.

  • Chustar

    Also kinda awesome, the ads at the top of this article have a “related items” and gues what’s at the top? Hulk Hogan!
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/chustar/3302570828/

  • John Mark Ockerbloom

    In the 1990s, the third edition of the “Official Scrabble player’s dictionary” removed a number of controversial words, which made some schools and home players happy, but really ticked off competitive players. Most tournaments use the full unexpurgated word set, so the “Official” isn’t really official now, for the purposes of competition.

    Here’s a list of the words that were “banned” in the third edition. “Dildo” didn’t get cut, but a number of other sexually, scatalogically, and ethnically charged words did.