Of Scrabble and God

Where do i start? This is first “official” blog in more than 21,900 days and its been so long. Too much nostalgia for the good old days when i didn't know what an oxymoron was (for the record, i still don't).

Many of us know of the popular word game – SCRABBLE © . Why would I bring this up? Well, first of all, this is MY blog and I can bring up anything i want. The second reason has something to do with the fact that a sudden craze for the game has blossomed in my locality(That sort of translates as instead of the usual 10 people playing the game here, there are now 11).

It all started one sunny morning during our college festival when a group of people (myself included) were to participate in a seemingly innocuous contest with a seemingly innocuous title - “Scrabble Contest”. Since we didn't have anything better to do we decided to give it a go. The preliminaries consisted of words that were not words but had to be made into words that made sense to all and sundry. I believe they are called anagrams. The one with the most anagrams would win. Needless to say... we didn't. But we did get to see the minds (and answer papers) of some of the greatest scrabble players to have emerged in recent weeks and that was when it struck me – THIS IS A COOL GAME.

I think a flashback would be appropriate here. The game of SCRABBLE owes its origins to a certain Alfred Mosher Butts, an out-of work architect from Poughkeepsie, New York. Butts wanted a game that would be better than those “lucky dice games” and yet provide the intellectual stimulation and skill of “chess games”. All this would be in keeping with the spirit of keeping the participants active and tense during competition. Quite a tough ask, but our old man was quite up to it. Butts came up with LEXICO (or LEXIKO), a game where players were given tiles to be assembled into words on a table. Later, he added points to the letters (based on painstaking cryptographic research from the front page of the New York times). Despite his enthusiasm, the game found no buyer and its patent was refused.

It was then, inspired by the growing popularity of crosswords that he decided to combine his game with a playing boards where words could be joined in the manner of a crossword. Its features included the 15 by 15 board and the 7 tile letters still used today. He called it CRISS CROSSWORDS. This met with the same fate as its predecessor.

That was when he would meet with a certain James Brunot, a meeting that would change his (and his game's) life. Brunot was responsible for fine-tuning the game and showing it's marketability. Most importantly, the all important name change to SCRABBLE was made. Together, they re-arranged the premium squares and simplified rules. Their copyright for the game was awarded on December 1, 1948. The rest is history.

Back to the present, on playing the game, I think that its main draw is its personality. The words (and non-words) one can somehow cog from out of their memory and gain points add to its versatility and individuality. That was what i discovered while i was arguing with my opponent as to whether “phoo” was allowed or not. The enthusiasm (in my locality) may die down after a while, but the spirit of the game will be. I hardly think that any other game (with the exception of my all-time favorite, Monopoly) can combine skill and luck so effectively. Well, i guess that pretty much concludes my first entry. Sorry it took so long. It would be really nice for me to continue but i have a Scrabble match to complete.

Cheers
>>harsh

mad.physicist@gmail.com