This is just not okay!
Bronx Scrabbleš„ savant Joel Sherman haās started a war over words, campaigning against the inclusion of āOKā on the gameās official list.
Sherman wants to stop the North American Scrabble Players Association ā the gšøoverning body for official competitions ā from making what he calls an āinsanely horrendousš¦ error in judgment.ā
Sherman, 56, is no armchair Scrabble enthusiast. He is the reigning North American champion anšŖd a former world champ.
While casual players rejoiced in September when Merriam-Webster included OK in the sixth edition of āThe Official Scrabble Players Dictionary,ā adding a valuable two-letter word to their arsenals, Sherman saw it as an affronš¤Ŗt.
According to the gameās rules, only words that appear as a lower-case entry in a source dictionary and are not abbreviations are allowed. Sherman, whą·“o has been playing Scrabble since he was 5, is a purist.
āIt is my feeling that the only way you could find citations for OK without periods between the letters and in lower case is from people typing quickly and conveniently in text messageą²s and on the Internet,ā he said. āThis form of printing that word would be rejected by professional editors in published material.ā
Sherman, who is known as GI Joel because he suffers from a gastrointestinal ailment, once scored a record-breakinšg 803 points in a tournament game ā his average score is 418 points ā and was featured in the 2004 documentary āWord Wars.ā He uses a computer program to continue to learnź¦ new words.
His North American championship victory in August was a come-from-behind win that netted him a $10,000 prizše.
Sherman posted a poll on the Facebook page of the North American Scrabble Playerš§s Association to gather ammunition in the fight against OKās inclusion on the groupās word list, which is out in February. Sentiment was running 2-1 against OK as of Friday.
John Chew, the groupās co-president, rejects the ideaš that OK is ą²an abbreviation.
āItās just a word and itās a short spelling of o-k-a-y (and) people use it all the time which is one more reason to let it be good ź¦in Scrabbleā,ā Chew said.
OK will join thź¦e two-letter ew and the most-reqą¶£uested zen, he said.
The two-letter words are prized because they šprovide bridges to higher scoršing plays.
Sherman says he has no beef with okay itself.
āI use iā¤t all the time,ā he said. āBuź¦t itās spelled O-K-A-Y. Thatās a word.ā