TABLE OF CONTENTS The original form of Scrabble was invented by American architect Alfred Mosher Butts, in the 1930s. He wanted to create a game which combined the elements of skill in finding good moves and chance the random selection of letters from the bag. He based the letter frequencies on analysis of how often the different letters appeared in the New York Times cover, although he reduced the number of 'S' letters to make the game harder. His ideas were rejected by games manufacturers however, and it was not until James Brunot started to independently manufacture the game in 1948 that it began to be commercially marketed. By 1953 it had become so popular, through word of mouth and its adoption by Macy's department store, that Brunot had to license manufacture to a major American games manufacturer. The game rapidly spread in popularity throughout the English-speaking world, and more recently to other countries as well, with versions existing in most of the major languages of the world. The first Scrabble world championship took place in London in 1991.
These are summarised from the Scrabble guidebook. The physical contents of the game consist of:
Game board The game is played on a board of 15 squares by 15 squares (Figure 2.22). Certain squares are designated as premium squares, and are marked as such and coloured differently on the board: ordinary squares are plain green, double letter squares are light...
