At the start of the year, Mattel removed 400 words from the official list authorized in the English version of Scrabble. The decision, which aims to make the game more inclusive, could extend to the French version but angers players.
The words removed by the Scrabble editor were deemed offensive to minorities and are therefore no longer accepted in the official rules in competition. But the decision did not please everyone. In anger, some players even quit.
French version soon to be updated
This development should also concern the next French version of the game. “We are struggling these days with requests from Mattel who gave us lists of a hundred words and asked us what we thought of them”, explained Benoît Delafontaine, member of the committee of the Swiss Scrabble Federation and of the editorial committee of the Scrabble dictionary, Wednesday in La Matinale de la RTS.
“Are there lexicographical reasons to remove these words, to keep them?” he wondered. Another possibility would be to accompany them with a warning: “We play this word, but we will take care not to use it in the conversation”.
Words already crossed out in the past
Scrabble’s dictionary is updated every four years, and the next version, finalized right now, will be released on January 1, 2024. But its dictionary already has fewer racial slurs today.
“In 2020, we conducted a reflection on the subject of racist insults and we removed from the dictionary two words which were considered to be only racist insults”, underlined Benoît Delafontaine. They were “negro” and “chinetoque”.
No accidental deletions
But the French-speaking Scrabble dictionary editorial committee has kept pejorative words like “blonde” and “bonasse” and will plead their case with Mattel.
About the second, “the word is not beautiful, it is rarely very becoming, but it is a word which is written, which is said and which is understood”, underlines Benoît Delafontaine. “It doesn’t appear to us to be so serious that it warrants removal.”
The editorial board says it is open to the progress of the French language and inclusiveness but opposed to the idea of eliminating words that some people just don’t want to hear anymore.
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