The Dictionary Game

Last night I finally managed to browbeat my mother into playing the Dictionary Game with me.

Many years ago, my mother acknowledged my love of dictionaries by buying me the Oxford English Dictionary Board Game.

Yes, such a thing exists. Yes, I have the "first edition". What else would you expect?

Anyway, since becoming the proud owner of a board game based on the OED, I have had great difficulty convincing people to play with me. To be honest, I can't blame them. The actually "board" bit of the board game is rather boring. It really just serves as an excuse to work with the cards: Spelling and Meaning.

These cards bring me great joy. The Spelling cards give you sample sentences, and you have to spell given words within those sentences depending on what level you are playing. The Meaning cards give you a word and three possible meanings, and you must guess which is correct.

When I was teaching, I used to take the cards in to school at the end of terms as a time filler. I'd split the class into teams and award them points depending on what they got right or wrong. It was, quite frankly, the only way I'd get to play. All of my so-called "friends" refused to play it on games nights. My own mother (who bought be the game) has played it once since she bought it for me, and makes a big show of refusing to play ever since.

Until last night, where she finally conceded to giving me a game.

The thing is, I've noticed the people who play with me seem to see it as an exercise in getting the answers wrong and feeling miserable, rather than just playing with the game and having fun. I'm quite happy to hear a ridiculous word I've never heard of before and attempt to spell it. If it get it wrong, that's part of the game. Everyone else seems to take it personally. Like it's some kind of test at they feel like their failing.

Just play the game, people! Who cares if you get every answer wrong? The next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing.

Also, I want Oxford to put out versions in other languages. I think it would be a brilliant language learning activity, and I'd love to have a set in German.

Oh, and maybe make the "board" bit less boring.