…and the game had gotten kinda tight. I needed that win after the epic beatdown she laid upon me in the first game. Next thing I know, she plays “coolie.” I’d never heard that one. I was hoping she was asleep at the wheel and trying to play “collie” so I could pop up with the most fun sort of challenge–the one you don’t even have to go to the book to check.
So I asked her what that was, and she said it was “a Chinese person that worked on the railroads.” Maybe I got something wrong with me, but that sounds like a slur. I wasn’t going to get righteously indignant with her about that–well, not really, but definitely playfully–but I sure thought slurs were banned from Scrabble a few years ago. And, to think, they did that before I ever got the chance to play “kraut-mick” and use it in the sentence “well, my kraut-mick friend…”
So we check the dictionary, and “coolie” was there. And how was it defined?
“Oriental laborer.”
So not only are slurs cool in Scrabble now, they’re defined by what amount to slurs. Funny stuff, if you ask me.
10 thoughts on “So I was playing Scrabble with Moms yesterday…”
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just to add to the irony, the fact that the definition is referring to a person as “Oriental” is degrading. Objects are Oriental; people are Asian.
PWNED
I thought a coolie was like a ravine. Scrabble is more fun when everyone makes up words and gambles there won’t be a challege.
Thanks for opening it up for me to play coon and jiggaboo in my next Scrabble war.
I googled “kraut-mick” and your site came up 8th.
“Thanks for opening it up for me to play coon and jiggaboo in my next Scrabble war.”
“coon” wouldn’t be playable because it’s slang for “raccoon”.
I love being that guy.
Coolie…you know, I love Agatha Christie, but she was not averse to using a slur or two in her books…
Scrabble is my game.
It sounds like somebody needs to write a letter to Websters. Black folks would be all over this.
I remember seeing “coolie”
quite frequently in my junior high reading books, but before this post I thought that it was specifically aimed at Indians.
Old and late with this, but I was playing online Scrabble with The Boyfriend and he played “jew”–and yep, it is in the dictionary, lower-cased, as an “offensive” term for haggling.