Hello Bloggers!
Tonight I thought I would write about one of my favorite games, Scrabble! I am a true game lover, almost any kind of game. As far back as I can remember I have loved to play games. I think sometimes people consider me to be competitive, but I don't. I do my best at whatever I'm playing, but I don't care who wins. Some of my favorite games include Dominoes, Dice (10,000), Rummikub, Backgammon, Chess, 7 card Rummy, Trivial Pursuit, Scene It DVD game, Taboo... the list goes on and on. (I'm really no good at Trivial Pursuit or Backgammon but I still love to play) I think I literally own most every game you can buy. Sadly, my son did not inherit this same passion, so... many games I have bought are still like new and covered with dust in my basement. :) I can't bring myself to let them go. The games that aren't played often enough to reserve a spot upstairs, are cast to the basement where I have (and I'm not kidding) a WHOLE WALL in my laundry room, with five standing storage units that each have five shelves, AND an entire closet PACKED with all of my games. I still have a few from when I was little. (I even still have my Candy Land game - call me slightly sentimental! Or maybe just plain "mental" ha ha)
In the "word games" category I like Taboo and Scattergories, but Scrabble has to be my favorite. The game has a perfect mix of chance and skill. You never know what letters you will draw, but your strategic placement of the tiles can score big points and win you the game.
Recently some family members and I have been having online Scrabble "tournaments" through email. It's a great way to play a game with someone far away. You receive an email when it's your turn and make your play at your leisure. It's nice because you don't have an impatient opponent sitting across the table from you, with a scowl on their face, waiting forever for you to think of a word. (which often happens in Scrabble) --- In fact come to think of it, Chess would be another great email game --- since it takes a long time to make your move --- You can sit and think at your computer, on your own time, for as long as you like and everyone has fun!
I decided to go to the official Scrabble website today and they had a whole page about the history of Scrabble. I found it very interesting, so I thought I would copy and paste it into a blog to share with the rest of you. I have also included the web address. They have some skill building exercises you can play, give it a whirl!
SCRABBLE 101
The story of SCRABBLE is a classic example of American innovation and perseverance.
Who invented SCRABBLE?
During the Great Depression, an out-of-work architect named Alfred Mosher Butts decided to invent a board game. He did some market research and concluded that games fall into three categories: number games, such as dice and bingo; move games, such as chess and checkers; and word games, such as anagrams. Butts wanted to create a game that combined the vocabulary skills of crossword puzzles and anagrams, with the additional element of chance. The game was originally named Lexico, but Butts eventually decided to call the game "Criss-Cross Words."
How did he do it?
Butts studied the front page of The New York Times to calculate how often each of the 26 letters of the English language was used. He discovered that vowels appear far more often than consonants, with E being the most frequently used vowel. After figuring out frequency of use, Butts assigned different point values to each letter and decided how many of each letter would be included in the game. The letter S posed a problem. While it's frequently used, Butts decided to include only four S's in the game, hoping to limit the use of plurals. After all, he didn't want the game to be too easy! Butts got it just right. His basic cryptographic analysis of our language and his original tile distribution have remained valid for almost three generations and for billions of games played. The boards for the first Criss-Cross Words game were hand drawn with his architectural drafting equipment, reproduced by blueprinting and pasted on folding checkerboards. The tiles were similarly hand-lettered, then glued to quarter-inch balsa and cut to match the squares on the board.
Then What?
Butts' first attempts to sell his game to established game manufacturers were failures, but he didn't give up. He and his partner, game-loving entrepreneur James Brunot, refined the rules and design of the game, and renamed it SCRABBLE. The name, which means "to grope frantically," was trademarked in 1948. The first SCRABBLE "factory" was an abandoned schoolhouse in Dodgington, Connecticut, where Brunot and friends turned out 12 games an hour. The letters were stamped on wooden tiles one at a time. Later, boards, boxes and tiles were made elsewhere and sent to the factory for assembly and shipping. The first four years were a struggle. In 1949, the Brunot's made 2,400 sets and lost $450. As so often happens in the game business, SCRABBLE plugged along, gaining 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," and SCRABBLE sets 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 Selchow and Righter Company, a well-known game manufacturer founded in 1867, to market and distribute the games in the United States and Canada. Even Selchow and 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 and Righter purchased the trademark SCRABBLE from Brunot, thereby giving them the exclusive rights to all SCRABBLE Brand products and entertainment services in the United States and Canada.
Here is the web address: http://www.hasbro.com/scrabble/home.cfm
Check it out when you can!
Tonight I thought I would write about one of my favorite games, Scrabble! I am a true game lover, almost any kind of game. As far back as I can remember I have loved to play games. I think sometimes people consider me to be competitive, but I don't. I do my best at whatever I'm playing, but I don't care who wins. Some of my favorite games include Dominoes, Dice (10,000), Rummikub, Backgammon, Chess, 7 card Rummy, Trivial Pursuit, Scene It DVD game, Taboo... the list goes on and on. (I'm really no good at Trivial Pursuit or Backgammon but I still love to play) I think I literally own most every game you can buy. Sadly, my son did not inherit this same passion, so... many games I have bought are still like new and covered with dust in my basement. :) I can't bring myself to let them go. The games that aren't played often enough to reserve a spot upstairs, are cast to the basement where I have (and I'm not kidding) a WHOLE WALL in my laundry room, with five standing storage units that each have five shelves, AND an entire closet PACKED with all of my games. I still have a few from when I was little. (I even still have my Candy Land game - call me slightly sentimental! Or maybe just plain "mental" ha ha)
In the "word games" category I like Taboo and Scattergories, but Scrabble has to be my favorite. The game has a perfect mix of chance and skill. You never know what letters you will draw, but your strategic placement of the tiles can score big points and win you the game.
Recently some family members and I have been having online Scrabble "tournaments" through email. It's a great way to play a game with someone far away. You receive an email when it's your turn and make your play at your leisure. It's nice because you don't have an impatient opponent sitting across the table from you, with a scowl on their face, waiting forever for you to think of a word. (which often happens in Scrabble) --- In fact come to think of it, Chess would be another great email game --- since it takes a long time to make your move --- You can sit and think at your computer, on your own time, for as long as you like and everyone has fun!
I decided to go to the official Scrabble website today and they had a whole page about the history of Scrabble. I found it very interesting, so I thought I would copy and paste it into a blog to share with the rest of you. I have also included the web address. They have some skill building exercises you can play, give it a whirl!
SCRABBLE 101
The story of SCRABBLE is a classic example of American innovation and perseverance.
Who invented SCRABBLE?
During the Great Depression, an out-of-work architect named Alfred Mosher Butts decided to invent a board game. He did some market research and concluded that games fall into three categories: number games, such as dice and bingo; move games, such as chess and checkers; and word games, such as anagrams. Butts wanted to create a game that combined the vocabulary skills of crossword puzzles and anagrams, with the additional element of chance. The game was originally named Lexico, but Butts eventually decided to call the game "Criss-Cross Words."
How did he do it?
Butts studied the front page of The New York Times to calculate how often each of the 26 letters of the English language was used. He discovered that vowels appear far more often than consonants, with E being the most frequently used vowel. After figuring out frequency of use, Butts assigned different point values to each letter and decided how many of each letter would be included in the game. The letter S posed a problem. While it's frequently used, Butts decided to include only four S's in the game, hoping to limit the use of plurals. After all, he didn't want the game to be too easy! Butts got it just right. His basic cryptographic analysis of our language and his original tile distribution have remained valid for almost three generations and for billions of games played. The boards for the first Criss-Cross Words game were hand drawn with his architectural drafting equipment, reproduced by blueprinting and pasted on folding checkerboards. The tiles were similarly hand-lettered, then glued to quarter-inch balsa and cut to match the squares on the board.
Then What?
Butts' first attempts to sell his game to established game manufacturers were failures, but he didn't give up. He and his partner, game-loving entrepreneur James Brunot, refined the rules and design of the game, and renamed it SCRABBLE. The name, which means "to grope frantically," was trademarked in 1948. The first SCRABBLE "factory" was an abandoned schoolhouse in Dodgington, Connecticut, where Brunot and friends turned out 12 games an hour. The letters were stamped on wooden tiles one at a time. Later, boards, boxes and tiles were made elsewhere and sent to the factory for assembly and shipping. The first four years were a struggle. In 1949, the Brunot's made 2,400 sets and lost $450. As so often happens in the game business, SCRABBLE plugged along, gaining 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," and SCRABBLE sets 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 Selchow and Righter Company, a well-known game manufacturer founded in 1867, to market and distribute the games in the United States and Canada. Even Selchow and 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 and Righter purchased the trademark SCRABBLE from Brunot, thereby giving them the exclusive rights to all SCRABBLE Brand products and entertainment services in the United States and Canada.
Here is the web address: http://www.hasbro.com/scrabble/home.cfm
Check it out when you can!
Also, the site where you can set up an online game of Scrabble through email is http://Scrabulous.com
What are your favorite games???
That's all for tonight! Happy Scrabbling!
Love,
Diane
Love,
Diane
