Cwms [kooms]

We visited my parents this past weekend. The boys took advantage of every opportunity to play with their game-loving grandfather. Yesterday, Elliot played "Spill and Spell" with Pop Pop. I was playing with the other boys across the room, but heard Pop Pop say, with a chuckle, "Now that definitely is not a word." Elliot insisted that it was. Jack, hearing all of this as well, ran over the table to offer his "official" verdict. Jack took one look at the letter dice, and confidently declared that Elliot was right. The word in question was "cwms". Neither Pop Pop nor I recognized the word. So, how did Elliot and Jack both know it? Computer Scrabble. They have both spent hours playing against the computer, and have learned dozens of unusual 2, 3 and 4 letter words. They can't pronounce them, or tell you what they mean, but they know they are words (according to the official Scrabble dictionary at least!) Watch out, should you decide to play against them. And, certainly, don't challenge their words!

SCRABBLE

The kids have been obsessed with Scrabble for the last few months. It started when one of them discovered a version of the game on the computer. Besides the obvious online injection of dopamine, the PC version made it very easy for them to learn the rules, play against each other or alone, check words in the official Scrabble Dictionary, learn to keep score, and even gave them hints when they asked for them. After a few weeks of being nagged to let them play on the computer constantly, I sent Ted to our storage unit to retrieve our regular and travel Scrabble games. The boys were delighted! And, thanks to the swift learning curve with the computer version, they were off and running with the real game, completely on their own. They play together. They play alone. They create fantasy Scrabble boards with impossible 10-letter words. And, on the few occasions I've had time to play with them, the games are very close. Thanks to the online dictionary, they know far more 2 letter words that I will probably ever know. They also know every word that starts with the letter Q. They talk triple word scores, and proudly (and instantly) shout out their scores. They even taught me the Scrabble term "bingo", which is a play using all 7 of your tiles. (I still haven't gotten one yet, but they have.) Elliot's proudest moment? "Quizzers", using a blank for the second Z. Now, if only they could tell me what all the words they play mean...