scrabble rule help!!

February 22, 2009 4:32 PM

scrabble fight! ok, so we are having a dilemma. can you form the same word two times in one turn in the game of scrabble? more inside!!

we know that you cannot form the same word twice in TWO turns (i.e. person one makes the word "in" and then person two makes the word "in")...Scrabble rules on box and online say "NEW WORDS must be formed in each consecutive turn..." but can one player make the same word twice in ONE turn? (i.e. "in" across and then "in" down again?)

I not only need an opinion, but also a LINK to where I can verify the rule online. My gut is saying you cannot make the same word twice, regardless of how you do it, but my fellow scrabble players dispute this. Thanks (in advance).

posted by slograffiti to sports, hobbies, & recreation (14 comments total)

I dunno about you and your coplayers, but rule 3 reads to me that a "new word" is measured by all existing words, not just the most-previously played.
posted by rhizome at 4:38 PM on February 22

You are confused. You're allowed to do both. The rules are telling you that you must make "new words" as in, add letters to the board to make words. Whether they were elsewhere on the board before or not is irrelevant. Best link I can give you is this, which defines how new words are made. Note that there's no mention of what words were on the board already.
posted by kingjoeshmoe at 4:39 PM on February 22 [10 favorites]

I've often made the same word twice in the same turn online - this is playing the official Scrabble game on Facebook, so I'd imagine it's OK. I think 'new' just means forming at least one word, not just pointing to a letter a on the board and taking a point for it - if they had to be different it would say 'different'. I've just tried to find the rules on the FB version, but can't see them anywhere. Hope this helps.
posted by etc at 4:39 PM on February 22

As someone who has played Scrabble for four decades, yes, you can make the same word as many times as you want, or multiple times in one turn. You are misunderstanding the rules.
posted by jessamyn at 4:47 PM on February 22

You're confused. It's unambiguously legal to repeat words. Either in one turn or across multiple turns.
posted by Perplexity at 4:48 PM on February 22

kingjoeschmoe nails it. You're misreading the rules. You can create the same word twice in one turn, in two turns, or at multiple times during the same game. As long as it's a new instance of the same word, you're good to go.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 4:48 PM on February 22

kingjoeshmoe et al. are right.
posted by danb at 5:00 PM on February 22

Yes, you can! Yes, s/he can! If the word is a valid Scrabble word it can be played unlimited times.

If the word is a bluff, it can be played unlimited times until it is challenged.

Scrabble is brutal but fun. Don't give up!
posted by maggieb at 6:52 PM on February 22

Here's confirmation from competitive matches that duplicate words are okay:

Photos of boards from the 2005 UAE Scrabble Championship. Notice repetition of "PE" in game 4.

Annotated board from the National Scrabble Association's 2007 Players Championship. Notice repetition of "IT".

It might be tough to find an actual rule confirmation, since you're just misreading the function of the word "word" in the rules.
posted by pokermonk at 9:23 PM on February 22

Very much so, in fact it can be extremely profitable to do so.

Here are the twos of SOWPODS: AA AB AD AE AG AH AI AL AM AN AR AS AT AW AX AY BA BE BI BO BY CH DA DE DI DO EA ED EE EF EH EL EM EN ER ES ET EX FA FY GI GO GU HA HE HI HM HO ID IF IN IO IS IT JO KA KO KY LA LI LO MA ME MI MM MO MU MY NA NE NO NU NY OB OD OE OF OH OI OM ON OO OP OR OS OU OW OX OY PA PE PH PI PO QI RE SH SI SO ST TA TE TI TO UG UH UM UN UP UR US UT WE WO XI XU YA YE YO YU ZO

Note the bold-italics words. Those contain an 8 (J, X) or 10 (Q, Z) point letter. If you can make a valid word that hinges on that letter, you score it twice. If the letter happens to be on a bonus square, you score the bonus twice.

Example: assume the word GRINDER is on the board, in a spot where the I is directly below a triple-letter square. You play QI above the I and N. This means you make 31 points across for QI (1), 31 points down for QI (2), and 2 points down for IN, total 64 points.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 10:59 PM on February 22

Everyone above is right. Here are the rules from the National Scrabble Association which spell out everything in mind-numbing detail.

When the rules say "new word", the semantic emphasis is on word - they are distinguishing "a new set of letters in some position" from "a new set of letters in some position that is an acceptable word". They don't use "new" to mean "new to this game" or "new to human history".
posted by 0xFCAF at 1:52 AM on February 23

You can also pluralize words on the board and/or add prefixes and suffixes to them.

I say this because another common fake Scrabble rule restricts people from adding "S" to the end of a word.
posted by paperzach at 3:19 AM on February 23

Yes.
posted by box at 7:53 AM on February 23

all these years and i've never played the same word twice! i guess i've always been too hard on myself. thanks!
posted by slograffiti at 8:41 AM on February 23