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My wife and I had a heated discussion on whether the move below was permissible under the official Scrabble rules. In this case, I added the letters O, I to form OE and OI. She claims it was a double movement, as OE was permissible because it was attached to the ending of MAZE, but OI was not permissible because I is attached to a word I just created hence the double movement. She claimed that if I wanted to add additional letters it can only be in the horizontal direction as it’s attached to the original word on the board being MAZE.

I claimed it was permissible as I went in one direction (vertical) whilst creating a word that was originally on the board being MAZE.

Can you please confirm whether my move was permissible?

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    Does this answer your question? double movement in Scrabble - while that's the reverse of your case, the accepted answer contains the exact quote from the rules that you need. – Philip Kendall Dec 28 '20 at 11:18
  • @PhilipKendall The linked answer doesn't specifically mention parallel play, so it is not really an answer to this question. – Ken Herbert Dec 28 '20 at 14:32
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Placing letters parallel to a word is a valid play in Scrabble, as long as every combination of letters formed by the play is a valid word.

From the official rules - Gameplay point #4:

New words may be formed by:

.....

  • Placing a complete word parallel to a word already played so that adjacent letters also form complete words.

So as long as "oe" is a valid word in whatever word source you are using, then it is a valid play.

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  • Thanks, the rules don’t seem to be clear whether every single letter in the new word needs to be adjacent to the original word, or whether only at least one letter (which is my case) will work. – Winston Dec 29 '20 at 8:19

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