Hey, Scrabblers!
Last year, I told you all about how today, April 13, is Plant Appreciation Day. You can check that Blog post out by clicking here. Today, however, we have a whole other reason that makes today special—it’s my sister’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Kim!
I guess that one’s really just celebrated by the people in her life, though. Okay, well there’s yet another reason that makes today special even if you don’t know my sister; today is Scrabble Day. And Kim’s a huge Scrabble fan so it all works out.
This board game concentrated on crafting words out of tile letters has an interesting history that goes back to 1933. It began with a New York architect who was out of work for some time. His name was Alfred Mosher Butts. Alright, folks—let’s get all the jokes out now before I continue…
Ready? Okay. So Butts was an avid reader of the New York Times and would often play the word games like the anagrams and crosswords. He once said, “There is one thing that keeps word games from being as popular as card games: they have no score.”
Inspired by the anagrams and crosswords, Butts went about developing a game that put a scoring system to the letters you randomly picked and had to form crossword style with other words on a board. He called this game…Lexiko. You weren’t expecting that, were you?!
Going by a different name than what we all know and love, Butts’ board game was turned down by game manufacturers time and time again. Unsatisfied with the name Lexiko, Butts changed the name and started marketing it as...Criss Cross Words.
Unfortunately, the concept of this game continued to be declined until Butts met a game enthusiast and entrepreneur named James Brunot. Brunot helped Butts refine the rules as well as the design of the board. And, most importantly, they changed the name once more.
They named the game Scrabble, a word that means ‘to grasp, collect, or hold onto something’. This game was finally trademarked in 1948 and caught on slowly, but surely and eventually became the household name that it is today. A Scrabble set is found in three of every five American households.
Enjoy a game of Scrabble today and send my sister warm birthday wishes (if you know her)! As always, thanks for reading, Camp Folks! And happy camping!
- John