Scrabble is a game that tests both your word knowledge and your relationship with the letter J. A rousing game of Scrabble often requires you to dig deep into your bag of tricks (or a thesaurus) to come up with rare and unusual words to maximize that triple word bonus. But sometimes you need just a little bit more help. What if you have a …
Great things can come out of hard times — take Scrabble. During the Great Depression, architect Alfred Mosher Butts couldn’t find work. So he decided to create a board game that required the vocabulary skills of anagrams and crossword puzzles but also had an element of chance. Butts hand-drew the original board with architectural drafting equipment.
What does it take to win a game of Scrabble? Intelligence, mastery of the English language, and a little luck certainly can’t hurt. There are, however, some little-known rules of the game that might give you an even stronger leg up when it comes to laying down those tiles and laying out all your opponents. Here are eight Scrabble rules most people don’t know that …
In the age of LOL, WTF, and OMG, abbreviations are often looked at as a sign of the coming apocalypse. (Spoiler: LOL, WTF, and OMG are not the oldest abbreviations in English—you’re shocked, we know.) So-called textspeak is viewed as a lesser form of English, and many people worry that pretty soon we’ll all be communicating solely in emoji. But, abbreviations aren’t exactly a new invention. …
Scrabble players are acutely aware that Q is a tricky letter. To use a Q in the game, a player must nearly always find an available U. (We’ll overlook the coveted two-letter word qi that any respectable Scrabble player will know.) The fact that Q is the second most rarely-used letter in the alphabet certainly doesn’t make using Q any easier. Let’s quest toward resolving …
Invented by out-of-work architect Alfred Butts during the Great Depression, Scrabble is a staple of word lovers’ lives. The popularity of this beloved game took off in the mid-1950s and has been an essential part of the canon of classic board games ever since. To determine Scrabble’s tile values, Alfred Butts carefully analyzed letter frequency in various periodicals, including the front page of the New York …
Though it’s a high-value letter in Scrabble and Words with Friends, H is a relatively common letter. Statistically speaking, it is the eighth most commonly used letter in the English language. That’s because H is usually paired with other consonants like wh, ch, sh, and gh. H is found in the most common two-letter pair (th) and in the most common three-letter combination (the). (The letter …