Scrabble History

ALFRED MOSHER chance and skill to become an American

BUTTS combined invent the game that has cultural icon.

Even though it’s a word game, the real story behind SCRABBLE® Brand Crossword Game is numbers. One hundred million sets sold world-wide. Between one and two million sold each year in North America. And, of keen interest to legions of passionate players, over 120,000 words that may be used in their scoring arsenal. The story of the game’s evolution from underground craze to cultural icon is as American as, well, the SCRABBLE game. Alfred Mosher Butts, an out-of-work architect from Poughkeepsie, New York, decided to invent a board game. Analyzing games, he found they fell into three categories: number games, such as dice and bingo; move games, such as chess and checkers and word games, such as anagrams. Attempting to create a game that would use both chance and skill, Butts combined features of anagrams and the crossword puzzle. First called LEXIKO, the game was later called CRISS CROSS WORDS. To decide on letter distribution, Butts studied the front page of The New York Times and did painstaking calculations of letter frequency. His basic cryptographic analysis of our language and his original tile distribution have remained valid for almost three generations and billions of games played.

Established game manufacturers were unanimous in rejecting Butts’ invention for commercial development. Then Butts met James Brunot, a game-loving entrepreneur who became enamored of the concept. Together, they made some refinements on rules and design and, most importantly, came up with the name “SCRABBLE,” a real word which means “to grope frantically.” The game was trademarked ® SCRABBLE Brand Crossword Game in 1948. The Brunots rented an abandoned schoolhouse in Dodgington, Connecticut, where with friends they turned out 12 games an hour, stamping letters on wooden tiles one at a time. Later, boards, boxes and tiles were made elsewhere and sent to the factory for assembly and shipping. CRISS CROSS WORDS, an early version of the SCRABBLE game, featured a gameboard made of architectural blueprint paper glued onto an old chess board.

The first four years were a struggle. In 1949 the Brunots made 2,400 sets and lost $450. As so often happens in the game business, the SCRABBLE game gained slow but steady popularity among a comparative handful of consumers. Then in the early 1950s, as legend has it, the president of MACY’S discovered the game on vacation and ordered some for his store. Within a year, everyone “had to have one” to the point that SCRABBLE games were being rationed to stores around the country. In 1952, the Brunots realized they could no longer make the games fast enough to meet the growing interest. They licensed Long Island-based Selchow & Righter Company, a well-known game manufacturer founded in 1867, to market and distribute the games in the United States and Canada. Even Selchow & Righter had to step up production to meet the overwhelming demand for the SCRABBLE game. As stories about it appeared in national newspapers, magazines and on television, it seemed that everybody had to have a set immediately. In 1972, Selchow & Righter purchased the trademark from Brunot, thereby giving the company the exclusive rights to all SCRABBLE® Brand products and entertainment services in the United States and Canada. In 1986, Selchow & Righter was sold to COLECO Industries, who had become famous as the manufacturers of the Cabbage Patch Dolls. Three years later, COLECO declared bankruptcy, and its primary assets — most notably the SCRABBLE game and ParchesiTM — were purchased by Hasbro, Inc., owner of Milton Bradley Company, the nation’s leading game company.

Today the game is found in one of every three American homes, ranging from a Junior edition to a CD-ROM with many versions in between including: Standard, Deluxe with turntable, Deluxe Travel, Spanish and French. Competitive SCRABBLE game play is widely popular much in the manner of chess and bridge. Every year, a National SCRABBLE® Championship is held in a major US city, and on alternate years the World SCRABBLE® Championship is hosted between Hasbro and Mattel. In addition, the National SCRABBLE® Association sanctions over 180 tournaments and more than 200 clubs in the US and Canada. The next generation of SCRABBLE players is steadily growing with over a half million kids playing the game in more than 18,000 schools nationwide through the School SCRABBLE Program. Hundreds of these students currently compete in state and regional championships across the country. The first annual National School SCRABBLE® Championship was held in Boston on April 26, 2003. Classrooms can also subscribe to the School SCRABBLE® News which includes a teacher edition complete with tested ideas and a lesson plan designed to meet nationally mandated educational goals, and a student issue chock full of feature stories and puzzles. Alfred Mosher Butts enjoyed playing the SCRABBLE game with family and friends to the end of his life. He passed away in April 1993 at the age of 93.

Scoring 1) All scoring is automatic, the game does this for you, and shows your score(s) after playing your turn. Your opponent(s) receive an update e-mail with current score and total scores. The score value of each letter is indicated by a number at the bottom of the tile. The score value of a blank is zero. 2) The score for each turn is the sum of the letter values in each word(s) formed or modified on that turn, plus the additional points obtained from placing letters on Premium Squares. 3) Premium Letter Squares: A light blue square doubles the score of a letter placed on it; a dark blue square triples the letter score.

4) Premium Word Squares: The score for an entire word is doubled when one of its letters is placed on a pink square: it is tripled when one of its letters is placed on a red square. Include premiums for double or triple letter values, if any, before doubling or tripling the word score. 5) If a word is formed that covers two premium word squares, the score is doubled and then re-doubled (4 times the letter count), or tripled and then re-tripled (9 times the letter count). In the Super Scrabble© game, if a word covers a double and triple premium word squares, the score is doubled, then tripled, (6 times the letter count). Or if a word covers a triple, and quadruple premium word squares, the score is tripled, then quadrupled (12 times the letter count). NOTE: the centre square is a pink square, which doubles the score for the first word. If player 1 passes on their opening play, the double word premium centre square score value, passes to player 2. 6) Letter and word premiums count only on the turn in which they are played. On later turns, letters already played on premium squares count at face value. 7) When a blank tile is played on a pink or red square, the value of the word is doubled or tripled, even though the blank itself has no score value. 8) When two or more words are formed in the same play, each is scored. The common letter is counted (with full premium value, if any) for each word. 9) BINGO! (50 extra points). If you play all seven tiles in a single play it's called a Bingo. Bingos score you a premium of 50 points on top of your score for the turn. 10) Remaining Letters: When the game ends, each players' score is reduced by the sum of their remaining letters. In addition, if a player has used all of their letters, the sum of the other players' remaining letters is added to that players' score. 11) The player with the highest final score wins the game. In case of a tie, the player with the highest score before adding or deducting remaining letters wins.