Scrabbling For Words At The Corner Café
Yes, today is Scrabble Day, and I bet most of us have played this game at some point or another and ended up with all vowels, or Z, X, and Q with no U or blank to use with the Q and none spare on the board, of course!!
And we are no strangers to weird words here at The Corner Café, with the ludicrous lexicology and verbose vocabulary we are subjected to on Wordy Wizardry every evening!!!
Here are some fun facts about Scrabble:
Scrabble was invented by a New York architect, Alfred Mosher Butts, in 1931, and he decided on the frequency and distribution by analysing the front page of the New York Times. He died in 1993, aged 93.
Scrabble was originally called Lexico, and then Criss-Cross Words before Scrabble was finally decided upon.
Scrabble is sold in 121 countries and in 31 different languages, and there is even a braille version available.
If all the Scrabble tiles made were lined up, they would reach more than 50,000 miles!!
It is possible to score 1,782 for a single word in Scrabble. Benjamin Woo played Oxyphenbutazone across the top of the board in a competition, hitting three triple word Score squares in the process and making seven crosswords downwards.
Now that took a lot of luck as well as skill and knowledge!!In 1985, Lieutenant Commander Waghorn and Lance Corporal Gill played Scrabble for five continuous days. Not by choice, mind you, as they were both trapped in a crevasse in Antarctica!! Not sure why they had a Scrabble board on them at the time either!! 😂
There are 124 playable and allowable 2-letter words in the English language version of the game which can use all the letters except for V. The way to get rid of the Q without an available U is to make the word Qi, which is defined as the vital force that is inherent in all things, according to Chinese traditional medicine and martial arts (also spelt Chi but both are allowable in Scrabble).
It isn’t just the professional Scrabble players who take things seriously. A five-year-old boy from Leicester once phoned police to tell them his sister was cheating at Scrabble!!
But Scrabble isn’t the only wordy way to pass the time. Some people do Criss Cross puzzles, Wordsearch or crosswords. I can do “logical” crosswords, but cryptic clues certainly do leave me using cross words!!!
So, are you a Scrabble buff, either on a board, a computer, or a tablet?
Are you super-competitive at it, even with family and friends?
Or do you prefer a more solitary workout for your brain in the form of crosswords etc?
Let’s share thoughts and things to do with Scrabble, puzzles, and words in general, and please have a bash at the puzzles above if they interest you!!
All are welcome.
And please feel free to share all discussions you enjoy.
