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Art of Scrabble

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Scrabble love

Scrabble is much more than 'just a board game'. It's a passion. It's just such a good opportunity to revel in word geekery. Scrabble offers one of the few opportunities in life to socially indulge in anagrams, to use obscure words, argue about spelling and discuss at length the merits of using 'hoover' as a verb - I mean, come on, it's brilliant. Winning is fun, too.

This lens looks at Scrabble, its history, ways to play, tips, cheats, blog links, videos, quirky information, books, documentaries, merch and more.

where it all began

Alfred Butts invented the game in the late 1930s, calling it Criss-Crosswords. The game he invented is remarkably similar to modern Scrabble, having the same set of letters (both distribution and point values), and the same sized board. However, Criss-Crosswords had more complex rules and Butts had no success in selling the rights to a game manufacturer.

A decade after it was invented, Butts sold the rights to the game in exchange for a royalty on units sold. The buyer was a Conneticut lawyer, J Brunot, who rearranged the premium squares, simplified the rules, called it Scrabble and sparked a gaming phenomenon by selling it into Macy's department store.

Five years later, Brunot sold the manufacturing rights to a gaming company, Selchow & Richter, and the game has been in distribution ever since. One hundred million sets (or so!) have been sold worldwide, in 121 countries and 29 different languages.

Terminology

learning the lingo

Here are a few Scrabble words below which you might find useful if you're just starting out...

BINGO: Putting all seven of your tiles down at once, results in a bonus 50 points on top of your score.
COFFEEHOUSING: Chatting excessively or otherwise distracting your opponent from their game.
EXCHANGE: To swap the tiles on your rack for new tiles, requires a turn forfeit which results in a zero score for that round.
HOOK: A letter which is added to a word already on the board to make a longer word (example, adding a Y to SOOK to play YES).
OSPD: Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary.
PHONEY: A fake word.
SOWPODS: The tournament word list used for official adjudication in all English-speaking countries (except North America and Canada, which uses TWL) and World tournaments.
TRACKING: Writing down each letter that is played to keep track of what letters are left in the bag.
TRIPLE TRIPLE: A Scrabble Holy Grail, a word that stretches from one Triple Word Score to another. Scores 9x word value.
TWL: Tournament Word List, the official adjudication authority for tournament play in North America, Canada, Thailand and Israel.

Social Scrabble

playing with pals

Social Scrabble is just that, Scrabble that is played outside of competition, tournament or club play. This was how Scrabble was invented to be played and marketed in its early days - as a family game. However, now it is just as likely to be played in a pub, around a kitchen table in a share house or - anywhere really!

Whereas tournament and club Scrabble has many rules and regulations, social Scrabble is a lot more relaxed and the rules are open to interpretation depending on who you are playing with.

House Rules

unofficial rules for social Scrabble

Many families or groups develop their own rules for playing Scrabble, sometimes based on the existing rules and sometimes not. Below are a few common house rules... feel free to add your own!

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Art of Scrabble

Scrabble love

Contents at a Glance

Contents at a Glance

Game History

where it all began

Terminology

learning the lingo

Social Scrabble

playing with pals

House Rules

unofficial rules for social Scrabble

1

Taking up blanks

2

http://www.buykamagratablets.co.uk

3

digital bathroom scales

4

calculatoare

5

Picking who goes first

6

Bounty bonus squares

7

Allowing dictionary use

8

Free trades

9

All words in

10

Tiles have one value

11

Time limits

12

Challenge verification

13

Allowing Dad to help

14

15

<a href="http://crikeycleaner.com.au/Carpet%20Cleaning%20Tweed%20Heads.htm">South Tweed Heads Carpet Cleaners</a>

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http://www.google.co.uk

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28

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Masland carpet

31

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Male Extra

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digital bathroom scales

38

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humbertsanitary.com

40

jewelocean.com

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Club Scrabble

getting serious

Scrabble Organisations

find a club near you