I’m a proud, long-time Scrabble nerd. And now the forces of evil are trying to mess with my game.

I first got into Scrabble as a teen. I started with the standard fold-out board before upgrading to the deluxe model, which rotated on a base (no more looking at tiles upside down!). I later picked up the compact travel edition with magnetized tiles — the Mini-Cooper of the Scrabble family.

Then there’s the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, a mainstay for those competitive matches. And yes, I have read the whole thing. Multiple times. (Which may or may not have been a contributing factor to my lack of dates as a teen.)

So, yeah, I’ve probably spent way too much time and money on my Scrabble obsession. But at least I’ve become really good. And it’s not because I have a spectacular vocabulary (I don’t, despite being a writer).

My special skill involves making the most of those colored boxes — Triple Word Score, Double Letter Score, etc — using minimal letters. There’s nothing better than scoring 36 points with a strategically placed “ZOO.” It’s doubly pleasing when my opponent has just laid down something lame like “SILENT” for 6 points.

Now, sad to say, my special skill is under attack. In March, the Wall Street Journal‘s Carl Bialik reported that some players are protesting the recent addition of three words to Scrabble’s official word list — za, qi and zzz — that make it too easy to score big. (See “Price Drop: Stocks, Homes, Now Triple-Word Scores.”)

Bialik added that “some Scrabble aficionados would like to see the rules changed — which would be the only change since Alfred Butts popularized the game in 1948.” Lowering the value of letters like Q, Z, X and J is one proposed solution. To which I reply: “NOOOO!”

In most areas of life, I don’t like inflation. Whether it’s grade inflation in college or steroids-fueled inflation of home runs in baseball, I almost always line up with the anti-inflation forces. Not in this case.

I don’t want to live in a world where it’s no longer possible to pull down a cool 30 points for a well-placed AXE. So, president of the International Scrabble Foundation, or whoever it is that decides these things, I beg you: For the love of God and all that is holy, keep the original tile values!

Thanks to Lisa O’Sullivan for the idea.

Last night my husband and I went to see the new Star Trek. Yes, it was great. And no, I was not a fan going in.

In fact, I was about as far from a fan as you could get, having never watched a full episode in my life. Not that it matters because this is not a movie review. This is about Star Trek’s use of product placement. What, you didn’t think a movie set in the 23rd century could have product placement? (Is that the right century? The whole “alternate timeline” thing made it difficult to calculate.) 

There is the obvious placement, such as when the stunning Uhura slinks up to the bar to order a few crazy space-age drinks, along with a Bud and shot of Jack Daniels. But my favorite is the scene when a 10-year-old Captain Kirk “borrows” his dad’s Corvette for a joy ride while operating a Nokia touch-screen smartphone as he listens to the Beastie Boys “Sabotage,” full crank. 

Now before we ponder, as one blogger did, if Nokia ringtones would be the classical music of the future (God, I hope not), here’s the rumor as to why director J.J. Abrams picked this Beastie Boys classic. (I love this theory, even if it’s not true.)

Apparently the original Captain Kirk, William Shatner, had a problem pronouncing the word sabotage, preferring his own pronunciation method – which seems to have several extra a’s. Thanks to the movie site Cinematical, you can listen for yourself. 

I guess it’s obvious why product placement exists: It works and it helps fund the movie. Product placements have been around for a long time, but they didn’t really take off until the 1980s with E.T., where Elliot coaxes E.T. out of a shed using Reese’s Pieces. Sales for the previously obscure candy skyrocketed, and film and TV execs realized they had things backwards: Companies should be paying them for using their products, not the other way around.

In some movies product placement can be really obnoxious, but it really didn’t bother me in Star Trek. Besides, as one defensive Trekkie asks, “Is it so hard for some to believe that Jack Daniels, Nokia and Budweiser are not around in the future?” 

Nope. But I still don’t want the N5800 Star Trek edition phone.

If you’ve ever wandered the aisles of your local CVS looking for that perfect card to apologize for extensively underlining your friend’s copy of American Psycho, perhaps you’re just looking in the wrong place.

That “perfect” card belongs to the subversive online greeting card company Someecards, along with cards about hernia operations, accidentally stealing your friend’s boyfriend and feeling bad about consistently forgetting to attach documents to emails (you know, for all those times “when you care enough to hit Send”).

They’re even timely with their new line of Swine Flu cards, which allow you to give a shout-out to all the obsessive-compulsive hand-washers you know. 

Anyway, just wanted to take a moment to appreciate the most brilliant copywriting I’ve ever seen since Vitamin Water. And if you see some bit of writing that blows you away, let us know. Especially if we wrote it.

Part of our job as copywriters is to advise our clients on what not to do. Don’t make the subject line for that email so long. Don’t make users hit the Scroll Down button eight times to reach the bottom of that Web page. And one of my personal favorites: Don’t include anonymous testimonials in your collateral.

When it comes to cited testimonials, I’m 100% on-board. Seeing a quote from a named source (ideally, someone at a well-known company) is a great way to add credibility. Hell, we do it on our own website.

But what’s the use of a dazzling quote attributed to … some guy named Gene who lives in Texas? Or Jan from Arizona?

This was my first thought upon scanning a print ad for Athena Pheromones. Sure, the product was developed by Dr. Winnifred Cutler, the self-proclaimed “co-discoverer of human pheromones.” (Little known fact: She collaborated with the late Bea Arthur on the research.) But I can’t help but be skeptical about the pheromones’ efficacy given the vagueness of the quote attributions.

In all seriousness, clients often ask me about using customer testimonials cloaked in some level of anonymity. My advice is this: If you’re doing business-to-business, make sure you can include the customer’s name, title and company whenever possible. Business-to-consumer? A first and last name along with city/state usually will do the trick.