Scrabble when was it invented

Still, there are crazy variations that people play, including one called Clabbers. Playing the game before you had either of these words as options, if you got the Q , you were pretty much stuck with it until you got a U. So we would think that whoever got the Q on average was going to get 10 or fewer points in their game.

Now the Q is a much less negative tile to hold on to, so there are some people who think it should be worth 8 points instead of 10 points.

Yell it out to confuse your opponent! And then if you want to compete at an international level, you have to memorize things like misprints in Shakespearian manuscripts and Syrian texts, names of various obscure animals and plants from around the world and words in Indian and things like that. Chew says he thinks the game is best played in English, though, for a number of reasons. There are also tiles specific to certain countries.

Before players start a game, they lay out the tiles—in four groups of 5x5 squares—to make sure all the letters are there. Attempting to combine the thrill of chance and skill, Butts entwined the elements of anagrams and the classic crossword puzzle into a scoring word game first called LEXIKO.

Legend has it Butts studied the front page of "The New York Times" to make his calculations for the letter distribution in the game. This skilled, cryptographic analysis of our language formed the basis of the original tile distribution, which has remained constant through almost three generations and billions of games. Nevertheless, established game manufacturers unanimously slammed the door on Butts' invention. It was only when Butts met James Brunot, a game-loving entrepreneur, that the concept became a commercial reality.

Together they refined the rules and design and then, most importantly, came up with the name SCRABBLE - a word defined as 'to grasp, collect, or hold on to something'; and a word that truly captured the essence of this remarkable concept. Pushing on, the Brunots rented a small, red, abandoned schoolhouse in Dodgington, Connecticut. Along with some friends, they turned out 12 games an hour, stamping letters on wooden tiles one at a time.

Only later were boards, boxes, and tiles made elsewhere and sent to the factory for assembly and shipping. In fact, the first four years were a struggle. Then in the early s, legend has it, that the president of MACY'S discovered the game while on vacation and ordered some for his store.

What await! How did Hasbro become the final owner of the game and its rights? That is them! Unfortunately, a few years later, Coleco went bankrupt , which left Hasbro in a perfect position to purchase the game rights — and they did. And that is how the game of Scrabble became a firm favorite in nearly every single American home. What about Scrabble as we know it today? Well, the good news is that Scrabble is still pretty much the same, many decades after it was invented.

Nowadays, Scrabble needs no introduction to the average person. Most people have heard of it and played it at some point. There are even various editions and variations, including the travel size version, standard version, deluxe version, and online app version. Scrabble has been a game that has merely grown in popularity.

Currently, it has its very own dictionary that includes words that can be used in the game. As you can see from the interesting history of Scrabble and how it all unfolded, the game has come a long way and faced many challenges. I am prone to believe that the game is due every bit of its success. Now that you know a little more about the game and where it comes from, you can mention it in your next Scrabble game!

Skip to content. Table of Contents show. From Lexiko to Criss-Cross Words. How Scrabble Became a Hasbro Game. Scrabble Today. Last Word.