Scrabble

Scrabble Letter Tiles with Player's Rack

LEFT: Scrabble Game Board with Tile Pieces

RIGHT: Score Points Throughout the Game

SCRABBLE

UNITED STATES

20TH CENTURY

ORIGIN

American architect Alfred Mosher Butts invented the precursor to Scrabble in 1938 named Lexiko. The first few sets were made by himself and unsuccessfully sold to any major game manufactureers of the day. Butts soon met a game loving business man name James Brunot. Together they refined the game design and dubbed the game Scrabble.

Eventually the trademark was purchased by Selchow & Righter, and in 1986 Coleco purchase Selchow & Righter, which is proceeded by Hasbro purchase of Coleco's  asset after Coleco went bankrupt in 1989. (1)

THE GAME

Scrabble is a word game where two to four players score points by placing tiles on the game board forming a word that's defined in the dictionary. Each of the tiles has a letter and the points for playing that letter should the player succeed in forming the word. The game flow follows crossword puzzle and plays from left to right or downwards.

TODAY

Scrabble is one of the most iconic game in the states, with championship held in many major US city. (2) Some high school English class has even employed playing scrabble as a way of education.

Street Scrabble can be found all over the world for pedestrian fun or large scale tournaments.

Street Scrabble in Oslo, Norway