Proper nouns in Scrabble… say it isn’t so

The other night at a party I learned that they, the makers of Barbie dolls, and apparent owners of the game are going to change the rules of Scrabble to allow proper nouns.  I was shocked and outraged.  What a stupid and bad idea.  This changes the whole dynamic from being a game about the intricacies of language to being about general knowledge.  Where does it end some; the the name of some obscure tributary of the Congo river…the bizarre name of some celebrity’s child (who I will never have heard of but my partner, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of celebrity trivia, will ) … the name of some fictitious Star Trek galaxy… the name of someone’s neighbour’s dog… who knows where it would end… anarchy, I say.   While most decent dictionaries have some proper nouns in them, they can not be used as an arbitrator as they are idiosyncratic about which they use and who can keep up with or predict what is and isn’t going to be in any one of them.  Scrabble like croquette is one of those games that brings out the worst in many seemingly rational and  well adjusted people.  We see the other, rarely aroused, side of bookish friends and gentile grandparents as their carefully repressed competitive side is momentarily unleashed and the ruthless fiend emerges.  It won’t do to have more confusion and room for controversy when these guys are in a manic obsessive state trying to get their Z on a triple letter.  They will resort to anything.  I think only standard words in a standard dictionary. Not a Scrabble dictionary either that has a ridiculous number of two and three letter words that I have never heard of but have been sanctioned by someone, probably some exec at Barbie HQ.