THE GENEALOGY OF SCRABBLE, CROSSWORDS AND BANANAGRAMS

Speculation is the first words spoken by humans tumbled out somewhere in the neighborhood of 150,000 years ago. Language glued humans and communities together, allowing for the transmission of thoughts from the mind of one to the mind of another. And surely on the heels of the evolution of language came the fascination with how those words could be manipulated -- listening to the sounds, saying them backwards, rhyming them, using one word for another meaning, taking them apart and reassembling them.

Oral puzzles are likely as old as language, but the first evidence of a physical puzzle emerged in the 19th century B.C. near Lake Moeris in Egypt, in the form of a huge labyrinth. The oldest known version of a board game, backgammon, has been dated to the third millennia B.C. in the ancient Iranian city of Shahr-e-Sukteh. Tomb artists in Benihassan depicted players engaged in an unknown board game a thousand years later, still well before beginning of the Christian calendar.

That we have a very long history and enjoyment of word and board games is amply demonstrated early on.

The convergence of leisure time and disposable income created an ideal environment for the rise in popularity of board games among the middle class in our country in the early 20th century.

Arthur Wynne, a journalist for the New York World Newspaper, invented the crossword puzzle in 1913, originally calling it a "Word-Cross Puzzle." Based on a game from Arthur's childhood known as "Magic Squares," the crossword puzzle has become one of the most popular and widespread games in the world.

Another hugely successful word game, in its infancy known as "Criss Cross Words," thrust its inventor, Alfred Butts, to iconic stature in the world of tournament Scrabble players today. Created in the early 1930's, Scrabble had a tough go of it for a couple of decades, but it's popularity exploded in the 50's. Mr Butts' little anagram game, employing the elusive convergence of both chance and skill, ranks just below Monopoly as the second best-selling game in United States history.

A new twist on those two very enduring games has surfaced with the introduction of Bananagrams, a very portable composite of crossword puzzles and Scrabble.

One hundred and forty four tiles, similar to Scrabble's tiles less the printed letter values, comprise the entire game. Players select a set number of tiles from a quirky little banana bag, then simultaneously begin constructing grids of valid intersecting words, just like a free form crossword puzzle.

Perhaps it's that inherent human trait of curiosity that fuels the well established popularity of word and board games, but the trio of fun, strategy and luck aren't a bad combination for a successful endeavor either.