Month: July 2020

Enlarge / I had to squint to make sure there weren't any offensive words in this illustrative photo. (credit: Flickr / DavidMartynHunt)

The North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA) seems poised to remove hundreds of offensive slurs from tournament-level Scrabble play. The proposed move is part of an effort by the group to "support Black Lives Matter and bring justice to our world," as organization CEO John Chew put it in a recent newsletter.

Hasbro, which publishes Scrabble, told The New York Times that NASPA has "agreed to remove all slurs from their word list for Scrabble tournament play, which is managed solely by NASPA and available only to members." The company said it will also be updating the game's rules "to make clear that slurs are not permissible in any form of the game."

But after weeks of debate, NASPA's 12-person advisory board hasn't yet officially voted on the proposal to ban over 200 offensive slurs and variations from tournament play. That vote is set for later this week.

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Here's a question to ponder this morning: should people use the word "cannabis" or "marijuana" when referring to the psychoactive plant? That sounds like a pretty left-field question for a Wednesday morning, we know. But it was sparked by a lengthy discussion in the Ars office this morning, and we figured it might be interesting to get your take on the issue, particularly since the way we use language is under the spotlight right now.

Confession time: the debate was initiated by yours truly. I find it hard not to be pedantic, and since the actual names of the plants that people smoke (or vape, or eat) are cannabis sativa and cannabis indica, I think that's what we should use when we write about the topic at Ars. The word "marijuana" is also specific to North America, and while our audience is predominantly North American, it's not exclusively so.

But there's another reason to drop "marijuana" from the style guide: in the 1930s there was a conscious, racist effort by US government authorities to demonize the drug by associating it with Mexico.

Enlarge / The Tongariki site, built by Polynesians on Rapa Nui. New data suggests that by the time their ancestors arrived on the island, they had already had contact with South America. (credit: Andres Moreno-Estrada)

The Polynesians were the greatest explorers of the world. Starting from the vicinity of Taiwan, they sailed across vast stretches of the Pacific, settling—and in some cases, continuing to trade between—astonishingly remote islands from New Zealand to Hawaii. But it's never been quite clear whether they made the final leap, sailing from Rapa Nui to reach the nearest major land mass: South America.

There are some hints that they have, primarily the presence of South American crops throughout the Pacific. But there has been no clear genetic signature in human populations, and the whole analysis is confused by the redistribution of people and crops after the arrival of European sailors.

Now, a new study finds clear genetic indications that Polynesians and South Americans met—we've just been looking at the wrong island—and wrong part of South America—for clear evidence. The researchers also raise a tantalizing prospect: that South Americans were already living on a Polynesian island when the Polynesians got there.

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Today's Dealmaster is headlined by a bundle of deals on Nintendo Switch exclusives, with a quintet of Nintendo-made games available for $40 each across Amazon and GameStop.

The discounted games include Super Mario Maker 2, the Ars-approved side-scroller/level-creation tool that lets you make your own Mario courses—with either modern or NES-style looks—and play a hypothetically infinite number of levels made by other people. (Just note that you'll need a Switch Online subscription to enjoy those and that finding the good levels requires a little extra work.) New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, meanwhile, is the updated version of an excellent traditional 2D Mario platformer; here, it plays in 1080p and includes both the base game and its New Super Luigi U expansion.

Beyond that, Splatoon 2 has been out for a few years now—and is now done with new content releases—but remains both one of the Switch's best shooters and a unique take on the online shooter format as a whole. Mario Tennis Aces is another option for competitive types; while it's more of a fighting game in a tennis body than a true tennis game, post-release patches have made it much more balanced and accessible after a somewhat rocky launch. Finally, Yoshi's Crafted World is a simplistic side-scroller, but if you'd like a cute and easygoing game for young kids, you could do worse.