Alex Palazzo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at The University of Toronto.
Forget about all the crazy conspiracy theories about why Hillary won (such as the Deibold theory, the white poor vs black candidate theory, the who is on top of the list theory, the Chris Matthews revulsion theory, the Hillary preconceived teary-eyed pro-sympathy theory) - the real issue is whether reshaven should be counted as a word in Scrabble.
Yesterday we discussed what the Official Scrabble Dictionary had to say on this issue, but as a commenter pointed out:
Also note the irony of letting a book, written by a supposed higher authority, decide your opinion on whether something exists or not.
I must say that the great advantage of blogs (besides spreading gossip and conspiracy theories) is the ability to access the collective knowledge of the Internet. Yesterday's post led to one commenter informing us about nonce words.
Now, like any good controversy, the reshaven debate has moved onto facebook.
This morning I discovered that baymate updated her facebook status:
In retaliation I updated mine:
Now the only question left is what would Jesus say? Obviously he's unreshaven.
Update: apparently Bora reshaves (but that doesn't mean that he's reshaven!)
Comments
Having just played kielbasi (covering two triples for 158 pts), I (briefly) feel like a world class Scrabble player.
If reshaven is a word, there is no point to owning a dictionary. The only variant on shaving that would make sense, would be to note when it is done for the first time. All other shavings are inherently "re" processes.
There, I hope I've settled this once and for all time.
Posted by: Mark Gisleson | January 10, 2008 12:17 PM
You know, it occurs to me that shaven is an irregular preterite form of to shave, and that it's fairly typical when altering irregular verbs to regularize them at the same time. As a copy editor, if I were looking for a word that means "the state of not being recently shaved again," I would probably prefer unreshaved to unreshaven.
Unreshaven, though, would be a fine choice for poetry:
Barely scathed
I seek a haven:
Unrebathed
And unreshaven.
Posted by: HP | January 10, 2008 12:58 PM
Okay, no opinion on reshaven but I tried the scrabble application against the robot yesterday and it used 'edh' amongst a number of crazy words. I have lost faith in scrabble dictionaries...
Posted by: BTM | January 10, 2008 2:37 PM
current lab tally:
unreshaven: 1 (deluded Alex)
reshaven: 5 (including our resident genius postdoc)
Posted by: baymate | January 10, 2008 3:00 PM
OK baymate answer that!
If you allow reshaven, then after we've shaved twice we are all permanently reshaven (regardless of how hairy we may be at any particular time.) You're word has fully corrupted my sense of grooming!
Posted by: apalazzo | January 10, 2008 3:01 PM
Baymate witnessed this recount, so this is for the general record. Lab polling results with regards to the reshaven question:
Reshaven: 2 (3 with my wife)
Unreshaven: 2 (including resident postdoc genius who announced that reshaven had yet to graduate from nonce word to proper word)
Unshaven (i.e. undecided, awaiting Grammar Girl's endorsement): 2
Antishaven (i.e. don't care): 2
Posted by: apalazzo | January 10, 2008 5:14 PM
BTM: edh
Posted by: HP | January 10, 2008 7:30 PM
I just read this:
"As the unreshaven candidates competed to get on more ballots, John Edwards let loose with the surprising ejaculation 'Go home and play Scrabble, Obama!"
Posted by: apalazzo | January 15, 2008 11:36 AM