UTCO B QPCSMHL….. (Please refer to your newspaper for complete puzzle.)
TODAY’S CLUE: O = N
ANSWER: WHEN I GREATLY NEED TO DRAW THE TWENTY-FIRST LETTER OUT OF THE SCRABBLE BAG, I FEEL FOR U.
🔠 SCRABBLE 🎲
CREATED IN 1938 • CLASSIC WORD BOARD GAME • LETTER TILES, STRATEGY & SCORING
🧠 AN ARCHITECT WITH A WORDY IDEA
During the Great Depression, unemployed architect Alfred Mosher Butts began developing a word game called Lexiko. By 1938, he had added a crossword-style board and renamed his creation Criss-Crosswords, laying the foundation for Scrabble.
🔤 THE NAME THAT FINALLY STUCK
In 1948, entrepreneur James Brunot acquired the rights to manufacture Butts’s game and renamed it Scrabble. Brunot and his wife Helen initially produced sets in Connecticut, but demand eventually grew far beyond their small operation.
🎲 SEVEN LETTERS, ONE CLEVER MOVE
Players draw seven letter tiles and take turns forming connected words on a 15-by-15-square board. Each new play must connect with words already on the board, combining vocabulary, planning, and a little luck.
💎 THE SECRET BEHIND THE LETTER VALUES
Butts studied letter frequencies in newspapers to decide how many of each tile the game needed and how much each should score. Common letters such as E earn one point, while the rarer Q and Z are worth ten points apiece in English-language Scrabble.
🏆 A BINGO WITHOUT A BINGO CARD
Special board squares can double or triple a letter’s value or an entire word’s score. Using all seven tiles in one turn earns an additional fifty points, a move Scrabble players call a bingo.
🌎 A WORD GAME THAT WENT WORLDWIDE
Scrabble became a national sensation in the early 1950s after major retailers began stocking the game. It eventually spread internationally, inspiring organized tournaments, competitive word enthusiasts, and generations of family game nights.
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