scrambled scrabble

i believe in the old adage, you can learn something new everyday. but it's not everyday that you can learn something old.

i can't quite remember when i started playing scrabble. it's just one of those things that happened over time which you never paid much attention to. it wasn't from my only sibling because he never had the patience to sit quietly with me for hours, nor from my parents who were both chinese proficient. by deduction, it must have been from my peers, be it primary or secondary school days.

so, what does it matter who i picked up the game of scrabble from? i'm trying to pinpoint the source. the source of my misinformation. scrabble is one of those games which you just play, never for once opening the attached thin book of rules to counter-check the standards of playing. instead, having a good dictionary nearby is the norm. i have never had the need to look through the game rules, until lately.

i have just learnt, the hard way, that i have been playing scrabble wrong for all these 36 years, not that i started playing when i was still going goo-goo-ga-ga and in my diapers, of course. imagine my surprise when i placed a brain-racking word (in facebook's scrabulous) formed from someone's triple-word alphabet, expecting a substantial increase in my points, when i was merely awarded with a measly 8 points. ???!!! my jaw dropped to the floor. when it happened a second time, in another game, i was flabbergasted. frustrated, i looked here and there, i googled, i wikipedia-ed and i cried for help. only then i learnt that those extra points for the special spaces on the board are only accorded to newly placed tiles, and not for the next turn. hello?? after playing the game for at least two and a half decades, you're telling me i've been strategising wrong??!! i've been protecting all those double word, triple letter spaces so frenziedly against my competitor's next turn for nothing?

my question is, for all those friends i have been playing with all these years, did you not know as well?? we have all been muddling along and nobody had an inkling? i find that a little hard to absorb. people from all ages, all walks of life, from different countries. they all played scrabble with me the wrong way all these years and not a single soul knew.

this from someone who owns two scrabble boxes at home. i hang my head in shame.