Blet

I've recently learned the word "blet"--learned it in the WWF sense. That's not World Wildlife Federation, nor is it the World Wresting Federation. It's Words With Friends, the online Scrabble knockoff, one of whose distinctive features is that you can try an unlikely word with no fear of consequences: the software will tell you if it's on the approved list, and if it isn't then it's still your turn and your opponent doesn't even have to know what stupid-ass combination of letters you just tried to get away with. I'm somewhat addicted to this game, as are my wife, my son, and various friends of ours. Tesi recently told me that she had the word "blet" played against her by our friend Katherine. I was glad to hear it: I happened to be in a game with Asa in which that word might be very useful. He had played "lets" in such a way that someone with a "b" could add to it and maybe get another word on a triple word score. About a week later I finally got my "b" and took advantage. (The outcome of the game is still in doubt; he had a bit of a lead, but now it's a close one.) Here's the great thing: "blet" seems to be a word worth knowing for other reasons. Possibly neither Katherine nor Tesi bothered to look the word up. Neither did I, I admit. Asa (a true intellectual) did, at the Wordnik site. So you know that thing that pears do? When you buy some pears, and they're not ripe yet, but then before you notice that they're ready to eat they suddenly go from underripe to soft/brown/yucky? I think that that's called "bletting". Apparently an English botanist called Lindley adapted the French verb blettir. What I haven't got straight is precisely which kinds of pears-going-bad the word applies to: the OED (my old paper version) quibbles as to whether some other dictionary has misinterpreted Lindley: maybe if there are brown spots then it's just plain rot, not bletting. I'm very interested in this thing that pears do, because it's so disappointing. But I'm even more interested in using words correctly. Also I don't know whether "blet" is related to "blight". (This was Tesi's suggestion.) Can anyone tell me?