Scrabble under fire for racist words

mellowyellow

mellowyellow

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A Northern Territory man has filed a formal complaint against the owners of popular board game Scrabble for including racist slurs against Aboriginal people in the game’s dictionary of playable words.

Aboriginal activist Stephen Hagan lodged the complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission against international toy maker Mattel for allowing the words “abo”, “coon” and “boong” to be played. He said he was “absolutely flabbergasted” the company permitted the use of such offensive words.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/r...y/news-story/b66af909b7b7154ebb62a33d65cd04bc
 

The Scrabble just consists of a board, 4 holders, 98 tiles that have letters on them, and 2 blanks.

The SCRABBLE online dictionary offers only words found in the The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, Fourth Edition which lists over 100,000 playable two- to eight-letter words. For a word to be included in The Official SCRABBLE Players Dictionary, it must be found in two of the five most popular American dictionaries.
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How can Hasbro control what words are put together? I see a frivolous lawsuit.
 
Gives the man purpose, perhaps Scrabble dictionary should be updated not to offend anyone. I am thankful I am secure in my private thoughts. Otherwise someone might find my thoughts offensive and pass jurisdiction prohibiting all thoughts deemed harmful or unnecessary sanctioned by law.
 
Nathan said:
The Scrabble just consists of a board, 4 holders, 98 tiles that have letters on them, and 2 blanks.



How can Hasbro control what words are put together? I see a frivolous lawsuit.
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The point, not that I agree, is that the Scrabble game comes with a dictionary of words and those words are included in the dictionary as acceptable to be played.
 
The item is too many now play find something offensive as a sport ........ Even if they have to look deep for it.
It is sad that because some want to look for a payout from whomever.......
The length and contortions some go to to be offended is remarkable. I have not had or bought a scrabble game for years but the only time we used a dictionary is used is to verify a word .......not read through it hoping to find some thing....
 
It isn't the Scrabble board, etc. that is being objected to. It's the Scrabble dictionary. Any word used in the game has to be in that dictionary. The funny thing is, some surprisingly obscene words are in there.

Of the words MellowYellow mentioned, the only one that surprised me is Coon. Isn't that a nickname for a raccoon? If a word has more than one meaning, it seems to me it should be allowed.
 
Mr. Ed said:
Gives the man purpose, perhaps Scrabble dictionary should be updated not to offend anyone. I am thankful I am secure in my private thoughts. Otherwise someone might find my thoughts offensive and pass jurisdiction prohibiting all thoughts deemed harmful or unnecessary sanctioned by law.
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They are working on it....
 
Good grief. A dictionary is a dictionary is a dictionary. All legitimately recognized words that are properly spelled (as determined by ...wait for it... a dictionary!) are fair play in Scrabble. If he finds certain words offensive, then he should choose to only play with people who don't use those words. I'd imagine most people don't.

The concept of intellectual freedom is eroding rapidly in the Western world.
 
Sunny said:
It isn't the Scrabble board, etc. that is being objected to. It's the Scrabble dictionary. Any word used in the game has to be in that dictionary. The funny thing is, some surprisingly obscene words are in there.

Of the words MellowYellow mentioned, the only one that surprised me is Coon. Isn't that a nickname for a raccoon? If a word has more than one meaning, it seems to me it should be allowed.
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@Sunny in Australia coon is a brand of hard cheese ,there was talk of changing the name some time ago ,but I’ve not heard anything about it in a while.
 
Mr. Ed said:
Gives the man purpose, perhaps Scrabble dictionary should be updated not to offend anyone. I am thankful I am secure in my private thoughts. Otherwise someone might find my thoughts offensive and pass jurisdiction prohibiting all thoughts deemed harmful or unnecessary sanctioned by law.
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I highly doubt they could manage to get this accomplished because there's always someone whose offended at something.
 
Kadee46 said:
@Sunny in Australia coon is a brand of hard cheese ,there was talk of changing the name some time ago ,but I’ve not heard anything about it in a while.
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By the time they change all the names or nicknames for items etc a whole new of offensive names or words will pop up.
There is no winner in this "everything offends game"
i just thought that some people may have dug out a scrabble dictionary just to read through...... i remember back in the day when people told everyone if you played records backwards this ot that was said too....

Frankly lately i would think this is the PR department at hasbro no one has spoken this much about scrabble in a long time 😁😁😁😁😁😁😁
 
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