The word nobody challenged

An original literary non-fiction-style account of playing a word-building board game with relatives.

My grandmother kept the dictionary on a chair behind her. It was too large for the table once the board and all four racks were in place. She had used the same book for years, although my brother said it was older than several perfectly good words. She replied that he could challenge a word when he had actually played one.

My brother went first and scored twelve. He announced the total as if opening a public meeting. My grandmother checked the squares, nodded and wrote it down. When my turn came, I made a short word along the edge. Nobody commented. I was relieved until my cousin added a single letter to it and scored more than I had.

Later, my grandmother placed a word I had never seen. I asked what it meant. She gave an explanation, then reached for the dictionary before anybody challenged her. The page she found contained a similar word with one different letter. She frowned, removed her tiles and told us to carry on. My brother said that he had been sure she was right.

My cousin wanted to keep a list of unfamiliar words after the game. My brother suggested keeping a list of the ones my grandmother got wrong. She handed him the pencil. He laughed, but did not write anything. Instead, he asked her to repeat the correct version so that he could remember it.

At the end, I helped carry the dictionary back to its shelf. Inside the cover were several slips of paper in my grandmother's handwriting. Some words had definitions beside them. Others had question marks. I put them back without straightening them into a neater pile.

What do you learn about the family's attitudes towards words and being correct?