Lauf

 August 15 Word of the Day: Lauf

 

Is Scrabble a word game, a vocabulary memory test, or more a form of mathematical improvisation involving letters and numbers? You have to lauf. Formidable 13-year-old Dineth Fernando used this word on his way to winning the World Youth Scrabble Championship in Nairobi. Lauf he did, four letters meaning a run in bobsleighing, itself a fact known to a small percent of the English-speaking world. German, probably Swiss-German, its use here obscure even then. Dineth is unlikely to have competed in bobsleighs but he does practise 200 words per day from the official Scrabble dictionary. This reading habit is intensive training of a special order, eliminating the common assumption that players live on an intake of encyclopedias and novelese, another word Dineth put in place on his winning way. Authors of novelese, defined as writing characteristic of poor novels, bland and formulaic, might envy his word power while questioning how many of these words would ever make it into their own, or any, fiction. Latter day Joyces could well concur. Sri Lankan now living in Melbourne since February, Dineth has competed against many Australians. One player, Carol Johnsen, says Dineth is “an astounding player. The tiles just flowed for him. He got the X and the Z and the Q and they all went in the right places.” Which goes someway to answering our question. He uses his double and triple vocabulary to match double and triple word scores in a highly scientific manner, lending new meaning to the word computerate. Minceur, a French word for thinness that has entered English as low-calorie cuisine, was another of his winners. But the skill goes past knowledge of the word to where the power letters can capitalise, or grow fat if you will, by strategic placement on power squares. Only particular kinds of histrio (an archaic word meaning actor) will have that blend of aptitudes and talents, memory and attention, added to which they must keep in training. It is not enough to rely on postering, that is all the main words that send the message. Postering is another word the Scrabble histrio Dineth used in his win in Nairobi But he won by possessing words, any word but in fact the right word, to suit the occasion in play provided by the unique crossword puzzle combination confronting him in real time. It is as though all available words are equal on a level-playing field, their use being not communication or feeling or the necessities of words in the moment, but purely their perfect suitability during a game played on an enormous rebus. Dineth, his friends and colleagues, engage in a high-level language game that, long ago, broke the boundaries of an enjoyable pastime where family and friends test their English vocabulary. They are racing down their own chosen lauf.