To be pissed off with my sister about 2 letter words in Scrabble?

[Destinysdaughter]

Tonight I suggested to my sister and DP that instead of staring at our screens we played a nice game of Scrabble unfortunately it quickly came unstuck as I played a word underneath another word and the 2 letter words that it made were ed and da. They said that I was cheating as they were not real words. Admittedly they were using a dictionary from 1977 whilst I play on a Scrabble app which gives you the list of allowed 2 letter words which you need to learn ( although you don't need to learn the meanings) .

So we had a v v heated dispute that you should only be allowed to use words where you knew the actual meaning as it was a game about lexicology whilst I was arguing that actually it's a numbers game and it's about placing words in a way where you will gain the most points ( even if you don't know the meaning of them )

We abandoned the game but are still arguing about who us right. I think I am! AIBU?

@ThatsNiceVeryNice Thanks, that is a good list with meanings and I have another too. As I said, I have used that wiki link myself and printed out the grid version (on right of page). But I had read somewhere else that EW was US only, but thanks for putting me straight there.

I am aware that there have been changes in the official list so, for example, 1977, 2018 and later lists can be confusing.

I personally want to know the meanings, not just in order to know whether I can put an S or ED or something on the end. I understand some people think it's not necessary to know the meanings or even think it's silly to want to know the meanings, but it's my decision. I don't mind if the people I play against don't want to know the meanings, I just think it's weird. They are using the CSW list with 127 words, but it is a version printed a few years ago which has been amended to show which words have been dropped and which added, so it's a bit confusing. I went to Wikipedia to get things straight.

This - love it!

‘filthy’ 😂

@ironblancmange I like to know the meaning too. Firstly because it's interesting and secondly because it helps me remember the words.

I can get right to the end of the sporcle quiz I linked to earlier but only because I know the meanings. ( well, most of the time. Sometimes I forget)

This is the one and only clear rule/understanding needed!

They're wrong, but it's always a good idea to agree to use a specific dictionary. We use a free one online that's designed by the company that makes the Scrabble game.

Our house rules say we're allowed to check that a word is "allowed" before we play it. We also draw 8 tiles instead of 7 to help the game move faster.

@ThatsNiceVeryNice Yes, I can do all the ones beginning with A and will do the rest.
Thanks to all for comments on this reopening of the thread. My questions are answered.
The house rules were clear. All regular players were familiar with the current words lists and 'dictionary' (word list book, no definitions). No problem for me except that my attempts to lay my hands on this stuff at home/on Google were not understood. All they wanted to do was to play 3 games in one afternoon like a sort of maths exercise, very fast because all knew the short words.
@singer15 We did have discussions as to whether we could check before playing. Opinions varied but the decision was: not allowed to check first. My pair could probably have decided otherwise but that didn't work because we had to ask the other four in order to check.

Destinysdaughter, the OP, put it in a nutshell:
"So we had a v v heated dispute that you should only be allowed to use words where you knew the actual meaning as it was a game about lexicology whilst I was arguing that actually it's a numbers game and it's about placing words in a way where you will gain the most points ( even if you don't know the meaning of them)"

except that I was on the other side of the argument.