![]() In English, zo is not a very useful word. In English, zo and dzo are alternative spellings of zho, a hybrid cow found in the Himalayas, the offspring of a domestic horned cow and a yak (the female is known as a zhomo). A casual player might respond to an opponent’s ZO by saying: ‘ Zo? What does that mean?’ A more advanced player would say nothing, and stick a D in front of it. Words in Scrabble do have meanings, they’re just totally unrelated to what the words mean in English. Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble by Stefan Fatsis (Yellow Jersey, £15) announces itself on the jacket as having to do with, among other things, ‘huge lists of words with no meaning at all’. A third way may be available, however: play a game of Scrabble, and what it means to be failed by words acquires a new complexion. The usual – and usually unsatisfactory – ways out of the quandary are silence or cliché. But whatever its cause, the feeling is real, and familiar, enough. This explanation is predicated on a notion that meaning exists prior to and independently of language, and whether or not that is the case is questionable. When people talk about words failing them, they normally have something vaguely semantic in mind, a feeling that words and meanings are out of joint, that they know what they want to say but not how to say it. ![]()
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