The Lexicographer’s Rack
For ages 15–18. Every word game rests on a list, and every list rests on decisions: what counts as evidence, what counts as harm, who may object. Read how the real lists are kept, then keep your own.
A case · you decide
Teodor and the word that isn’t in the list
Teodor — a 17-year-old who keeps the word list for his school’s word-game club
A first-year at the club plays NIBLING — a niece or nephew, said without picking which — and the club’s list says no. She shows Teodor a novel that uses it. The club made Teodor keeper of the list last spring. Now he has to decide what “in the list” means.
The big tournament lists are made by committees, not handed down. In North America, NASPA’s Dictionary Committee built the 2023 list (NWL2023) in the middle of 2023, published a draft report in September and a final one in October, and the list took effect on 29 February 2024.
Elsewhere, players use Collins Scrabble Words. New editions usually add words people have started to use — and they can take words out, too.
Usage is not the only test. In 2020 NASPA took 259 slurs out of tournament play. Collins took six words out as hate speech in its 2024 list. Players still argue about where the line should be. Every list keeper decides what counts as evidence, what counts as harm, and who gets to object.
What should it take for NIBLING to join the club’s list?
A member asks Teodor to remove a word that is in every tournament list but hurts people in the club. What does he do?
Teodor’s job isn’t to know every word. It is to say, out loud and in writing, what evidence lets a word in, what harm keeps one out, and how a member can object — and then to keep those rules even when he’d rather not.