Keeping one’s mind active in the
stages of advanced aging is critical, according to my doctors. It supposedly prevents one from repeating
oneself in conversations. Keeping one’s
mind active in the stages of advanced aging is critical, according to my
doctors. It supposedly prevents one from
repeating oneself. Ha ha.
To maintain a good handle on a
sharp mind I regularly engage in both paper and computer games.
Crossword puzzles and the like
help me retain my rapier-like thought process, as I limit myself to completing
daily newspaper crosswords to ten-minutes, and Sunday puzzles to an hour.
I also occupy my free time with
other games, and so I fill that excess space with computer challenges, such as my
email system and Scrabble.
This Scrabble game is both
entertaining and mind-jogging, simultaneously.
Beginning as a board game, it has evolved into a computer game that
allows society to use it on-the-go.
Playing against the computer, the
electronic challenger is named “Maven” by the game designer. The very definition of the word Maven is
expert, or connoisseur. After playing
several hundred games I can tell you, with authority, that she is neither, but is
a first-class cheater.
Anyone who ever played Scrabble
knows that it is a game that consists of tiles and a graph-like board. The tiles
are selected to replace those
played until the “well” of unused tiles is empty. The first player to exhaust their supply of
tiles ends the game; the highest point holder at that time, wins.
Words you assemble from those
tiles comprise the scoring system, with the hardest tiles to form words worth
more points.
For example, Q, J, K, W, Z, and
X, are difficult tiles to use in words.
Keep in mind that to use a Q, you usually need an adjoining U; it’s
difficult to think of words with a Q that don’t utilize a U. Quiz, squire, square, squirt, queen, aqua,
are only a few. And because of the rare
number of words assembled with a Q, the Q tile is worth ten points.
Other, more common letters are
worth only one point. But enough about
the game.
Maven has the built-in ability to
challenge your words, unlike your ability to challenge hers.
She doesn’t recognize words such
as oxen, ade, or homeboy. I know,
because I tried to use them.
She also uses words with which I
am unfamiliar, such as vanadic, genitor, and trapezii. Of course, it would probably behoove me to
become a better speller.
Just to keep the games more
honest, I often insert odd words that I
use regularly, although they may not be legitimate. Words such as buttclown, schiffliar, pottymouth,
and pelosiloser, are just a few.
Of course, Maven challenges them
every time.
So it’s not fair to play against
a computer that plays a game which was incorrectly programmed to not recognize
valid English language words like meatjug.
After all, who is to say a
regularly used word shouldn’t be programmed in to keep up with changing times?
In fact, later I plan on going to
Tallmart to buy two meatjugs. I told you
it was a valid word.
