"lez" not allowed in National Scrabble Championship-replaced

[underpants]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/scrabble_scramble

NEW ORLEANS - It wasn't a four-letter word, but it was close enough to cause a stir at the National Scrabble Championship Thursday.


In the final round, eventual champion Trey Wright played the word "lez," which was on a list of offensive words not allowed during the tournament.


Normally, no word is off-limits, but because the games were being taped for broadcast on ESPN, certain terms had been deemed inappropriate, including the three-letter slang for lesbian.

Wright, a 30-year-old concert pianist from Los Angeles, played the word and then drew two replacement tiles so quickly that the referee didn't notice at first. When he did, he said the slang term had to go.

Wright, using more innocent words like feijoa (an evergreen shrub) and zebu (a domesticated ox), won the best-of-five final round in three games and pocketed a $25,000 prize.

[mark0rama]

1. "There are words you just can't show on television,"

...Scrabble Association Executive Director John Williams said.

Wouldn't it have been hilarious if they'd just electronically blurred out the naughty words?

Read More About It:
To learn more about competitive Scrabble players' attachment to profane and vulgar words, read Stephan Fatsis' amazing book "Word Freak".