Zax

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Joanne. I’m calling from Port St. Lucie, Florida.

I have a question about the word Zax, Z-A-X.

Z-A-X?

Yes. It’s been my nemesis in the Scrabble game, and I just want to know where it came from, why it goes in and out of the dictionary. It has been just one of those words that is not a good word for me.

Joanne, what do you mean it’s been your nemesis? Are you trying to play it, or other people are trying to play it in Scrabble, or what?

Yeah, when I was a kid and learning how to play Scrabble, my mom had just taught me, you know, how you can challenge somebody. So she played Zax, and she was getting all these points, and I just knew that wasn’t a real word, so I challenged her. And we looked it up in the dictionary, and it was there, so I lost the challenge.

Oh, you were traumatized, right? She got all these double points, so she got all these points, and it was a challenge, so I lost big time.

Oh, man. And then years later, in college, we’re playing Scrabble, and I had the opportunity to play sax. And I was like, yes, here it is, awesome. So I played it, and it was on the double word. And, of course, my college friends are like, you know, we’re music majors. They’re like, you mean sax? That’s not a word. What are you talking about? And they look it up, and I’ll be back on it. Stupid word wasn’t in the dictionary anymore.

Well, what dictionary did they look in? It was Webster’s. And do you know what it means?

Yeah, it’s like a tool that you use for, like, in cement work and that kind of stuff.

Yeah. And roofing, yeah. I’ve even taken it further now. I mean, I’ve looked it up since then. And I’m a middle school band director, so I looked in, like, the dictionaries in school. It’s not in a hardcover dictionary anymore. It’s still not. Because if you go online, you can look it up and find it online. You’ve got to find the right dictionary.

The thing is, if you’re going to play Scrabble, then use the Scrabble dictionary because it’s in there. Any old dictionary isn’t the same as any other old dictionary. They’re not identical. You can’t just treat each dictionary as interchangeable. It’s a real word, though, and your friends were wrong. You were allowed to play it. It’s just you weren’t checking the right reference work. You totally should have gotten away with that.

Totally. I watched twice. Yeah, so Z-A-X is worth 19 points, and then you add in a double and a few other things going on and whatever other words you’re extending out. Yeah, that could be a killer on a good Scrabble game.

Joanne, your friends owe you. I think you have to track them down.

It’s for real, yeah, because they made me take it off, and then I had, like, I think I got, like, four points.

Yeah, I mean, oh, that’s just so not fair. But it’s a perfectly legitimate word, and Grant, you’re saying it’s actually in the Scrabble Dictionary.

It is, yeah. That’s a great Scrabble word. It’s a really good Scrabble word. Z-A-X. It’s a variant of S-A-X, sax, and they come from an old Saxon word or old English word that means knife. Because it’s got that one side is a really sharp edge, and the other side is like a tiny pick or kind of a sharp chisel-like protuberance.

I can’t say I’ve ever seen a sax. Yeah, they’re still used. They’re probably called something else. People probably just call them a hatchet. But, yeah, a zax or a sax.

So, Joanne, did we make your day?

Yeah, thank you. So it’s a real word. I wasn’t crazy.

Well, it’s a real word. I should have got my points back then.

All right. Well, we’re glad we could help you.

Thank you very much, you guys. That was awesome. I hope you get to use it soon.

All right. Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye, Joanne.

Bye-bye.

There’s some speculation that that exact word sax may be the root of the word saxon because they fought with long knives.

Yeah. But we don’t know for certain whether or not that’s true.

Okay. Yeah. For some reason I was thinking. The myths of ancient word origins are sometimes they fail to clear. That one’s really old. I’d like to hear from somebody who uses a sax, though.

Yeah. I’ve never heard of anybody carrying one in their tool belt. So all the dictionaries that I’ve checked show that it’s used in roofing.

Oh, okay. And they might call it a sax instead. I’m interested. Do they still use the old word or do they just call it a hatchet or hammer or something else?

Yeah, what do you call it? Call us, 877-929-9673, or send your answers and questions about language in email to words@waywordradio.org.