Competitive Scrabble Players Good with Words

A “groundbreaking” study suggests that spending thousands of hours studying word lists changes the way you process words.

In a shocking discovery, researchers at the University of Calgary have found that competitive Scrabble players read slightly differently than regular people. Research head Ian Hargreaves reported that serious Scrabble players, who spent hours memorizing the game’s list of 180,000 words, read differently than others. According to his study, the game's devotees were able to distinguish actual from fake words an average of 20 per cent faster and had greater flexibility as they read (both of which proved profoundly useful socially). Scrabble players with docetic devotion seemed to agree that the unputdownable report was true and were not bumbazed by its findings.