Peregrinatio Alterius Pauli: Inter-cultural exchange and a Scrabble© board

The Irish-American who comes to the modern Republic of Ireland, is likely to experience some cultural dissonance. On many levels, much looks and feels familiar. The people look the same and many of the names on shops and signs are familiar to us, with a few exceptions - names like Eóghan, Ruairí, Saoírse or Ó Suilleabháin . There is, unfortunately, the inescapable issue that they drive on the “other” side of the road (it would be an assertion of cultural superiority to call it the “wrong” side) and the cars are really small. Moreover, despite all their protestations about being different from the British, they insist on using terms like petrol, biscuits and jumpers. If they didn’t want to be like the British, they could use our words: gas, cookies and sweaters. I’ve even heard of few of them say that they love the queen! So, fellow Irish Americans, if you are coming to the Emerald Isle for the first time, they aren’t just like us with that quaint accent that your granny had.

Seems innocent enough

Nowhere did this chasm become more apparent to me than when I was invited to join in a friendly game of Scrabble. It seems that, on most evenings, a group of monks gathers in the community room after supper for a game of Scrabble. On one of my first evenings in Glenstal, I walked innocently into the community room. “Do you want to play Scrabble?” they asked, before I was barely in the room. Not wanting to be inhospitable, I said, “Sure”, when all the time I was thinking, “Oh no, not Scrabble. I haven’t played in years. They are probably like my brother-in-law, who had the Scrabble dictionary memorized. I bet they see me as chum – they are going to chew me up and spit me out.” I sat down with a sense of dread and a pleasant smile on my face. The bag was passed around and we picked our letters. When we picked our letters and revealed them, that was my first inkling that something here was very different.

The dictionary in question

Now, in my recollection of how the game was played, it was that the person whose tile had the highest value went first. Here, the person with the letter closest to “A” gets to go first*. “OK” I thought. “No big deal. I was in their country, in their house”, so I was prepared to go along. It didn’t really make all that much difference, It did strike me as odd, however, when each player was handed a dictionary. Now the rules say that there has to be an agreed upon dictionary for consultation. Of course, you need that to settle disputes. I just assumed that here, each player had his own copy of the agreed upon dictionary. Seemed like a practical idea, rather than having to jump up and consult one dictionary. Here one could check from the convenience of one’s own seat. So, you can imagine my astonishment when, in the first round, the player to my left picked up the dictionary and began thumbing through it before placing his tiles on the board. “Wait! That’s not allowed” I said, indignantly. As one man, all the other players turned to me and, in total innocence, said, “Well, that’s how we play here.” I felt a bit like Alice at the Mad Hatter’s tea party. Everything was awry. (That’s a good word if, you can get it onto a Triple Word Score)

Consulting the dictionary

And so it went. Over time, I adapted to this new form of play. My virtue was short-lived; and, soon I was consulting the dictionary like the rest of them – though maybe not quite as much. At one move, I had the temerity to consult the dictionary for its original purpose, and, lo, “le” is not a word, even in those dog-eared dictionaries. If looks could kill! I, the intruder, the invitee, had the gall to challenge a word. I knew at once, that I had committed a gaffe (good word, if you end up with two “F’s.”) I guess, if you can check the dictionary ahead of time, it’s unlikely that you will put down something that isn’t in the dictionary. Especially when the dictionary is filled with archaic Scottish words that no one has used since the Clearing of the Highlands after the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie. In the end, I acquiesced to all these new “rules”. I guess this is what they mean by “inculturation.”