American English Is Now Reliant on Scrabble's Dictionary

In the mid-1970s, top players in an emerging tournament Scrabble scene persuaded the game's corporate owner to adopt a universal lexicon for competition. Players manually scraped five standard college dictionaries, recording every unique two- through eight-letter word (plus inflections) that met the game's rules. When the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary was published, in 1978, players rejoiced. "You can retire the boxing gloves and put up your swords," the Scrabble Players Newspaper wrote. "You now have an arbiter to settle all arguments."