Word Nerds Celebrate National Scrabble Day
I fall into that group. I'm a word nerd. I love Scrabble! Why celebrate Scrabble today? April 13 is the birthday of Scrabble inventor Alfred Mosher Butts. Alfred was born in 1899 in Poughkeepsie, New York. Poughkeepsie wow! If city names were allowed in Scrabble, that would fetch a lot of points!
I bet you didn't know that Alfred first named Scrabble "Lexiko". In the 1930's, it changed to Criss Cross Words, and Scrabble was trademarked in 1948. Many on-liners now play Words With Friends. In 2014, Merriam-Webster's Scrabble Players dictionary, the Bible of Scrabble players, added 5,000 words including selfie, hashtag, bromance and texter. Scrabble tiles with the highest point value are Q and Z. Blank tiles, which can help you out in a pinch, earn 0 points. There are 105 legal two-letter words including ZA, DA, TI, AN, XI.
Today on my lunch hour, I'll have Kindle in hand playing one of 23-on line Scrabble games I have going. #havingwordfun #maytakeaselfie #happybirthdayAlfred