The Past Tense of Eat

Deluxe Board 

 I like everything SCRABBLE®. Twenty years ago I bought myself a deluxe model along with the official Scrabble players dictionary.

I especially like the word ET, a past tense of eat. It provided me a forty-eight point score at the tournament I attended in Campbell River as a fundraising event for the local literacy program. I never thought my word would cause a ruckus.

I had placed my tiles on the board, counted the points and stated them and the word quietly to my opponent. Her responsibility was to record the word and the points for it. She refused my word.

“What’s the matter?” I said.

“What’s that supposed to be?” she said. She pointed to my word.

“Et is a past tense of eat”, I said.

“I’ve been teaching English for thirty-five years and I’ve drilled it into my students’ heads that ate is the past tense of eat,” she said.

“Do you want to challenge the word?” I said.

We both knew the single challenge rule where if a player places a word and her opponent wishes to challenge, the challenger may do so with no penalty.

Ultimate Argument-Settler

 I waved the word judge over. He flipped through the pages of the Scrabble dictionary, located ET and read the definition. I knew that book to be the ultimate argument-settler for Scrabble game players.

“Why aren’t we using a proper Oxford dictionary?” my challenger said.

As her voice grew louder other tournament players turned their attention to our action. 

“This will be the last game I play. Let’s finish,” she said.

She recorded my word and the points on the score sheet. 

After the award ceremony I approached her and asked if she would be interested in joining me at the community centre where we play Scrabble for fun. After she accepted the invitation I handed her my official Scrabble players dictionary.

“Bring it with you on Thursday,” I said. “I’ll bring my board.”

Scrabble has it rewards

Tournament Fundraiser for Literacy