By DiAnn Mills @DiAnnMills
I’m sure you find it no surprise that a writer celebrates National Scrabble Day. With gusto! Writers live and breathe words, and that means our favorite games focus on those gems that form the alphabet.
According to Wikipedia, “Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left to right in rows or downward in columns, and be included in a standard dictionary or lexicon.”
As a girl, I played Scrabble with my dad. Soon my sister, brother, and mother joined in. We shared hours of fun enjoying healthy competition. Over the years, my enthusiasm for the game has continued. We’ve all drawn tiles that were all vowels, consonants, or letters in which we groaned at the selection.
Confession time: the last time I played with my then nine-year-old granddaughter, she beat me.
Here are a few Scrabble trivia facts:
- Alfred Mosher Butts created Scrabble in 1933. Note, this was during America’s Great Depression. He needed a job!
- The original name of the game was Lexico then Criss-Cross Words.
- Game manufacturers nixed the whole idea of a word game.
- In 1948, Scrabble was patented. Not-so-good sales.
- Slow start but Scrabble remains a popular game.
I found the history of SCRABBLE fascinating. Alfred Butts and his entrepreneur partner, James Brunot, demonstrated patience, persistence, and perseverance to achieve success. The two men believed in the game, and they proved to the world Scrabble’s worth.
Since the development of the game, Scrabble has stepped into the era of technological sophistication. Variations of the game keep the interest moving and players forming winning words.
In today’s busy world and especially during COVID, sometimes it’s hard to find time to gather with friends. Here are options for you to consider when you’re itching to put letters into words and friends are not with you.
Amazon & Barnes & Noble each have a variety of game offerings from the traditional board, a junior version, travel, and extra tiles when ones are lost.
Look at these 10 places to enjoy Scrabble as a single-player online. Be careful! You might become addicted!
Do you have a memory to share about playing Scrabble?
