The Interesting World of Scrabble – It Really Is More Interesting Than You Think

The year was 1933, the very height of the Great Depression, and an out of work architect named Albert Butts released a board game that he designed himself based upon his love of the crossword puzzle.

Old Albert had read the New York Times to figure the commonness of all of the letters (and modern computer analysis shows that he got it remarkably correct although there are too many “i’s”) and assigned them a point value.

He then created a board consisting of a grid with bonus squares such as “Double Word Score” and “Triple Letter Score.” He wrote up rules and packaged it up for sale.

The game was Lexico.

And it was an utter failure.

Until 1949 that is.

In the meantime Lexico had become Scrabble and the president of Macy’s had played it at a party and loved it. He ordered the game for his store just in time for Christmas and one of the all time great games was finally a success with the public.

Interesting Scrabble Facts

The word scrabble is actually a word (it means to grope frantically) and is playable in Scrabble.

The highest scoring commonly played word is quizzify (the second Z being a blank). But Scrabble fanatics have conceived of a situation in which the word oxyphenbutazone could be played for a jaw-dropping 1,778 points. How? Lets see…

If ox….but..one were played (the “dots” being blanks) then you could play “yphen” and “az”. Didn’t think I could do it, did you?

There are 96 playable 2-letter words in Scrabble. Yes, 96. Which is able 80 more 2-letter words than most people know. But learning all of these and the 977 3-letter words is the first step for any serious scrabble player. They help you play more words (along side other words) and get rid of leftover tiles at the end of the game. Not to mention impress you friends.

Some examples you probably know but would never think of:

Do, re, mi and the rest are all playable.

Et — past tense of eat. And you thought it was a Southern redneck saying like “ain’t”, “ya’ll” and “tump” didn’t you?

And a few you would never think of:

aa, ae, ef, es, hm (yes, no vowel) jo, ka, mm, op, sh, and xu.

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