A Hard Scrabble Existence
A Hard Scrabble Existence
Some history and some new words
“One should use common words to say uncommon things.” — Arthur Schopenhauer
If you’re a word nerd, odds are, you enjoy playing games like Wordle or Scrabble.
And naturally, you’ve already picked up on the play on words in the title of today’s Off the Clock entry — hardscrabble is an adjective: providing or yielding meagerly in return for much effort; demanding or unrewarding.
And as someone who has played and enjoys the board game Scrabble, I thought it might be fun to at a quick peek under the tiles.
Scrabble Facts
It was invented by an architect
Following the 1929 stock market crash, architect Alfred Mosher Butts found himself out of work. In his spare time, he developed the concept of Scrabble in 1933.
Scrabble wasn’t the original name
Butts initially called his game LEXIKO, and later changed it to CRISS CROSS WORDS (catchy, huh?). It was only when Butts met James Brunot, a game-loving entrepreneur, that the concept became a commercial reality.
Together they refined the rules and design and then, most importantly, came up with the name SCRABBLE. They trademarked it in 1948.
The point system was inspired by The New York Times
Legend has it that Butts determined how many points each tiled letter would be worth by scanning the front page of The New York Times and calculating the frequency with which each letter appeared. Thus, the coveted 10 points for letters Q and Z.
Z should only be worth 6 points
According to software researcher Joshua Lewis, the letter Z deserves fewer points because the dictionary of allowable words has changed over the last 90 years.
B-I-N-G-O
If you’re fortunate enough to be able to play all seven of your tiles in a single turn, that feat is called a Bingo.
Play this Bingo word for the most points
The highest scoring seven-letter bingo is MUZJIKS. Though the sum total of the seven tiles is 29 points, if the Z is placed on the double letter square (for maximum score value), the resulting score is (39 x 2) + 50 = 128 points.
The highest-scoring word
If you’re not satisfied with a high-scoring Bingo word, perhaps you’d like to try to form a longer word for the most points. If that’s the case, play OXYPHENBUTAZONE across the top of the board, hitting three Triple Word Score squares while making seven crosswords downward.
That will net you 1,782 points.
Happy hygge!
The Scrabble dictionary is always adding new words, and the most recent update in November 2022 included hundreds of additional words. Among them:
Hygge — the Danish obsession with getting cozy.
Eggcorn — a misheard word; a slip of the ear. Examples: “wipeboard” for “whiteboard,” “card shark” for “”card sharp,” “for all intensive purposes” rather than “for all intensive purposes,” and of course “eggcorn” for “acorn.”
Dumpster — the trademarked phrase is now considered a generic one. Throw your leftover Jell-O and Kleenex in there while you’re at it.
Guac — who has time to say guacamole any more? The shorthand qualifies.
Verb — it’s been turned into a verb, so get verbing!
Embiggen — the Scrabble dictionary has embiggened, thanks to the influence of The Simpsons.
Zoomer — assuming you can get them to put their phones down and play a board game, that is.
Grawlix — if this is new to you too, don’t worry. It is simply a string of typographical characters ($%!*#) that one doesn’t want to write (lest it get one in trouble). Related: A Little *@#& History.
There are hundreds of other new words to explore. If you pick up The Official SCRABBLE® Players Dictionary, Seventh Ed., don’t at me, bro. But you could drop me a comment with your favorite Scrabble word.
Yeehaw!
Thanks, and I’ll see you on the internet.
My favorite Scrabble word is the Welsh word "cwm" because your opponents will immediately call a foul until it is pointed out that it appears in the Scrabble dictionary.
For the record, my favorite high-scoring word that I hit (once) was JAZZY on a triple word score.