So I’ve been playing a lot of Scrabble on my iPhone lately. I started by playing on the medium or normal level but quickly got bored of that. I crush the computer every time on that setting. It’s not much fun without a real challenge.

So I bumped it up to the hard level to try and get a more competitive game. I got a bit more than what I asked for. I think I lost about 45 games in a row before actually winning a game.

I remember one day I was so close to winning my first game and then the computer told me that “zen” wasn’t a word. Are you kidding me? Zen isn’t a word? Apparently it’s Japanese and doesn’t count in the game of Scrabble. Of course the computer can play words that sound like utter gibberish all day, but zen is a no go.

I’ve actually been blown away at some of the words the computer uses. Every game I play, I expand my vocabulary.

Here’s a screen shot of the last game I just played a few minutes ago. I beat the computer on this round and I came across 6 words that I’ve never heard before. They are…

oxo
yom
dacha
inia
flaxy
jee

If I had to muster a guess of what the definitions are I’m not sure I’d be very accurate. Let’s take a stab. Here’s my guesses…

oxo = A cleaning agent or abrassive type cleaner
yom = soup (Oh duh, I know this. Didn’t think about it being combined with Yom Kippur.)
dacha = a plant
inia = a disease
flaxy = something to do with flax
jee = happy or gleeful

Ok, I’d assume I’m wrong on at least 5. Flaxy is pretty obvious. So, what I’m going to do so I can really learn and anchor these words is I’m going to write a paragraph and correctly use each word in that paragraph so the words will have context and more meaning to me. This way I’ll hopefully be able to remember the words more easily.

Here’s that paragraph….

I had to jee the horse as we departed the Russian dacha to head into town for some oxo before Yom Kippur had begun. While traveling along the river I was lucky enough to spot two inia’s playfully jumping out of the water. It was such a special site I decided to take a break and enjoy some of the flaxy leftovers in my satchel.

Of course I just made up that silly story to help my visualize the new words I just learned. I’m not going to tell you what they are, you can look them up for yourself if you are curious.

I will tell you that my spell check flagged oxo, inia and flaxy. However, I did find them in some dictionary online.

Anyhow, I’m sort of addicted to playing this Scrabble on my iPhone. It’s a good way to get your brain thinking and a phenomenal way to expand the vocab. Hey, vocab is a word.