Word Judge for Clubs and Tournaments

About the Book

“Word Judge for Clubs and Tournaments (WJ2) is a compilation of two- through twenty-letter words playable in North America. The Super Scrabble® players in Tustin necessitated this compilation. Although there are many words in the World English international word list that are not acceptable in North America, it is good to know that the two- through twenty-letter words included in WJ2 are valid and playable in the international tournaments such as the World Scrabble® Championship, Scrabble® Champions Tournament sponsored by the MindSports International, and the global SUPER-S Club games, whose players absolutely depend on WJ2 for adjudicating words with more than sixteen letters. Try playing the longest word you know, albeit in multiple steps. The joy of playing words beyond the fifteen-letter-word range is inexplicable. It is a rare occurrence that truly happened in Albany, W. Australia. Yes, it’s doable. What’s your favorite word game?”

About the Author

Born on June 5, 1946, Maliha Mendoza Mahmood became an American citizen in April 1982. Her second language is English, taught by teachers who were trained to teach the American English Language. During the American occupation of the Philippines (1898-1946), all public and private schools were mandated to use English as a medium of instruction for all subjects and courses of study, all the way from Luzon (the northern islands), Visayas (the middle islands), to Mindanao (the southern islands) where her basic elementary school education began. While a student interned at the Holy Spirit Academy (a Catholic high school run by the German nuns, known as the Servants of the Holy Spirit Convent in Laoag, Ilocos Norte), her primary means of communication was English. She underwent a process of immersion in the English language both in writing and speaking. After graduating from high school, she went to the Universidad de Santo Tomas (UST) in Manila and later transferred to the University of the East (UE), where she finished her business administration training. In 1967, she traveled to Bangkok, Thailand, and worked as an administrative assistant to the chairman of the Structural Engineering Department at the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) Graduate School of Engineering. While in Bangkok, she met Arshud Mahmood, a Pakistani, to whom she got married. In 1972, Maliha completed an Associate of Business Administration from Heald College of Business, San Francisco. She worked as a transcriptionist subcontractor for medical practitioners (1984–1997) while raising her children, Omar and Alia. Currently, she is the office administrator at MCE Consultants Inc., a civil and geotechnical engineering consulting firm founded in 1998 by Arshud Mahmood in Tustin, California. Maliha was thirteen years old when her aunt, Rosa Mendoza Bumagat, a school teacher, introduced and taught her how to play Scrabble.® Aunt Rose was married to an agricultural high school principal. At the time, when she was her guardian, her family lived in rural Odiongan, Romblon, in the Visayan island of Tablas. There were no television shows to watch, but we had a shortwave radio. The most exciting part of growing up was listening to the radio program known as “The Voice of America.” This is how Maliha learned much of her English pronunciation. She memorized and wrote them down. It was in the year 2000 when Maliha took a serious interest in playing this fascinating crossword game. Then she began attending the meetings at the local Scrabble® clubs. She filed and treasured all the partial lists handed to her by teachers and Scrabble® directors. She listed all the words she heard and learned from radio and TV shows by using an electronic shorthand machine. The collection finally became a serious collection of words. She wanted to share this compilation with everyone especially those interested in playing word games. When Super Scrabble® was manufactured by the Winning Moves Games in 2004, the electronic adjudicators in clubs and tournaments are unable to judge words beyond fifteen or more letters. The Super Scrabble® game is a challenge that every word game player must face. Indeed, it is time to learn longer words—especially those beyond the fifteen-letter-word range.