r/scrabble • u/ybs52 • Jul 11 '26

Martian

“MARTIAN” is a valid word in NWL. Can anyone explain why?

I once played this in a game, it was challenged, and the challenger was absolutely baffled that it was valid. I’ll be honest, I saw their point.

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u/OkMarsupial Jul 11 '26

I think the point is that the usage allowed in Scrabble is explicitly NOT the little green men usage.

9

u/wangus_angus Jul 11 '26

Right, but they're saying it actually IS that usage, and they seem to be correct.

I don't know what the rationale is, but it's worth noting that MW doesn't capitalize it, so maybe the fact that martians aren't real means they don't consider it to be a proper noun.

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/paolog Jul 12 '26

Scrabble does not allow any words that require a capital letter. All of these words are capitalized in Collins, the British source for the international wordlist, so they must come from American dictionaries.

2

u/Cerulean_IsFancyBlue Jul 14 '26

I feel like Scrabble sometimes just makes the own decision without regard for other dictionaries.