Scrabble
| Scrabble | |
|---|---|
 logo |
|
| Game data | |
| author | Alfred Mosher Butts |
| publishing company | James Brunot (1949) Selchow & Righter (1953) Schowanek (1953-1958) JW Spear & Sons (1953-1994) JW Spear & Sons (1958-1994) Hasbro (USA, Canada) Mattel (other countries) a . a. |
| Publishing year | 1949, 1953 |
| Art | Letter game |
| Teammates | 2 to 4 |
| Duration | 50 to 90 minutes |
| Age | from 10 years on |
Scrabble is a board game for two to four people in which the players create words from randomly drawn letters using the various bonus fields on the board. To date, over 100 million games have been sold in more than 30 languages; more than a million games are sold each year in North America alone.
history
The original form of Scrabble was developed in 1931 by the American architect Alfred Mosher Butts, initially under the name Lexiko . Butts goal was to create a game that is half influenced by luck and skill of the players. In this original form, the basic idea was the same as in today's game, but there was no game board and the letter distribution was still different. When it comes to the distribution of letters, Butts is said to have used the frequency of letters on a front page of the New York Times .
After the game was initially unsuccessful - he was only able to sell 200 self-made copies - Butts tried unsuccessfully to offer it to various larger game manufacturers ( Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley ). Inspired by the crossword puzzles that had just emerged , Butts decided in 1938 to expand Lexico with its own playing field and to rename it to Criss-Crosswords . In the following years he changed details on the field as well as the rules, but without essentially changing the principle of the game; however, the commercial breakthrough still failed to materialize.
The triumphant advance of the game began with James Brunot († 1984), a lawyer and criss-crosswords player from the very beginning, who took over the manufacturing and distribution rights to the game from Butts in 1948 in return for payment of a commission per game sold Successfully patented December 1, 1948. Brunot also gave the game its current name and registered the Scrabble brand with the patent office on December 16, 1948.
Between 1949 and 1952, Brunot produced the game in-house and sold up to 90,000 copies a year. In 1952/53, Brunot licensed production for the USA and Canada to the American game manufacturer Selchow & Righter . In 1972, Selchow and Righter bought the trademark and exclusive rights to Scrabble from Butts for the North American market. In 1986 Selchow and Righter was taken over by Coleco . After Coleco went bankrupt in 1987, Hasbro took over Coleco in 1989 and with it the rights for the North American market.
JW Spear & Sons licensed the game for Great Britain in 1953. Schowanek licensed the game in 1953 for Germany, Italy and a few other European countries. In 1958, JW Spear & Sons was able to acquire this license. In 1968 the license rights (with the exception of the USA and Canada) were completely sold by Brunot to Spear. Spear was sold to Mattel in 1994 .
Game material
The scrabble game includes the game board and the letter tiles, which are pulled out of a bag and placed on a plastic bench - originally a wooden bench - ( rack ).
Game board
There are 225 (15 × 15) playing fields on the game board, of which 60 are bonus fields: 24 × double letter value (light blue fields), 16 × double word value (pink fields), 12 × triple letter value (dark blue fields), 8 × triple word value (red fields). In addition, there is the star in the middle of the game board, which also doubles the value of a word. Each letter has its own corresponding value, players look for a higher number of points by using the highest number of points letters on their rack (wooden or plastic stick, which lines up the letter tiles in front of them and hides them from the eyes of the other players).
Letter tiles
In the German version, Scrabble has been played with 102 stones since 1989 (100 printed with letters and two without inscription). The individual letters appear differently and are rated differently. The number and point value depend essentially on the frequency of the letter in the language. However, the "playability" of a letter is also taken into account (the C is relatively common in German, but mostly requires an H or a K; the Q practically always requires a U (exception: "Qi"); the W is rarely at the end of the word etc.).
Currently, the letter distribution in German-speaking Scrabble is as follows (the number of stones in brackets). This has been used since 1987, and since then seven stones have been used.
- 1 point: E (15), N (9), S (7), I (6), R (6), T (6), U (6), A (5), D (4)
- 2 points: H (4), G (3), L (3), O (3)
- 3 points: M (4), B (2), W (1), Z (1)
- 4 points: C (2), F (2), K (2), P (1)
- 6 points: Ä (1), J (1), Ü (1), V (1)
- 8 points: Ö (1), X (1)
- 10 points: Q (1), Y (1)
- 0 points: Joker / Blank (2)
The distribution of letters and points is language-specific. For example, there are only 4 points for the Y in the English version, but it is represented twice.
The stones are made of light wood or plastic and are square; At 19 × 19 × 4 mm, they are slightly smaller than the playing fields on the board. The block letter is printed in black on one surface and its point value is small on the lower right. Versions for travel have z. B. 13 mm small stones, those for the poorly sighted much larger.
Historical versions
B U C H S T A B E N - V E R T E I L U N G A - 6 J - 1 S - 8 Ä - 1 K - 2 T - 5 B - 2 L - 4 U - 6 C - 4 M - 4 Ü - 1 D - 6 N - 10 V - 1 E - 16 O - 4 W - 2 F - 3 Ö - 1 X - 1 G - 3 P - 1 Y - 1 H - 5 Q - 1 Z - 2 I - 9 R - 7 BLANK - 2 ––––––– Verlag J. W. Spear & Söhne Nürnberg nach Lizenz der PRODUCTION AND MARKETING COMPANY NEWTOWN, Conn. USA (Spear • Spiel)
In Germany the game was a success very quickly, but not comparable to the success in North America, which can be seen in the different distribution of the tournament scrabble. For the local Scrabble, the rule and equipment change in 1987 was particularly groundbreaking. Before this date, eight letters were used.
In the version from 1955, it was still missing whether the inflected forms of the words could also be placed, which was later expressly permitted:
"All words that can be found in a dictionary can be formed, with the exception of proper names, foreign words, abbreviations, geographical names (rivers, cities, etc.), or words that have an ellipsis or a hyphen."
The game and especially the rules are still widespread among amateur players today. Critics of the new rules state that the game no longer depicts the actually spoken language through many forms and words that are perceived as nonsensical ("hui", "ravtet" (as a form of raven), "brr", "bst"). In addition, the number of eight letters made it easier to put longer words in the past. Proponents of the changes, on the other hand, argue that the old game was significantly more difficult due to a few under-evaluations of "difficult" letters (4 points for V; 2 for C) and that the more exotic forms are what make the game so attractive nowadays.
The letter distribution in the standard edition between the mid-1950s and 1987 was:
- 1 point: E (16), N (10), S (8), I (9), R (7), U (6), A (6), D (6)
- 2 points: T (5), H (5), G (3), C (4), L (4), O (4), W (2)
- 3 points: M (4), B (2), Z (2), F (3), K (2)
- 4 points: P (1), V (1)
- 5 points: Ü (1)
- 6 points: Ä (1), J (1)
- 8 points: Ö (1), X (1)
- 10 points: Q (1), Y (1)
- 0 points: Joker / Blank (2)
Another early edition from 1955 had the following letter distribution:
- 1 point: E (14), N (8), S (6), I (8), R (6), U (3), A (6), T (6), O (3)
- 2 points: D (4), G (3), L (3), Ö (1), Ä (1), Ü (1)
- 3 points: H (3), C (2), M (3), B (2), P (2), K (2), F (2)
- 4 points: W (2), V (2)
- 8 points: Z (1), Y (1), J (1)
- 10 points: Q (1), X (1)
- 0 points: Joker / Blank (2)
Supplementary material
In tournaments in particular - similar to chess - more and more clocks are used to individually limit the reflection time (see section "Tournaments and championships").
For a better overview of the normal playing field, it can be brought into the optimal reading position for every player using a turnstile underneath. There are special rotating game boards for this, which are almost exclusively used, especially in international tournaments.
Rules of the game
The Scrabble rules can be summarized as follows:
Game flow
- At the beginning of the game, the order is determined by drawing a letter. Whose letter is in the first place in the alphabet begins to lay. Then it continues clockwise.
- One after the other, the players draw seven letters from the bag and place them on their respective bench so that the other players cannot see them. The aim is now to use the drawn letters to create a word that earns as many points as possible. The first player must always put his word on the star in the middle of the field. Grammatical derivations are also possible (for example field, laid, beautiful).
- After the first word has been placed, the player fills his bench up to seven letters again. Now it is the next player's turn and also tries to get a high score with his letters. In Scrabble, a new word can generally be placed or an existing word can be expanded by adding letters, but it must always be attached to a letter of the existing “word structure”. The score of the entire new word and all newly created words is always calculated; No further bonus is granted for bonus fields that are already occupied. There are 50 additional points for discarding all seven letters.
- Once all players have had their turn, the first round is completed and the second round begins in the same order. If a player cannot or does not want to lay, he can pass and replace either none or up to seven letters. However, there must be at least seven letters left in the list. He may then only place a new word in the following round.
- The game is over when there are no more letters in the bag and one player has laid out all letters or after all players have passed twice in succession. The point value of the letters remaining on the bench is deducted and credited to the player who ended the game by using up the supply of letters. The winner is the player with the most points.
What is not allowed
- No word may be placed diagonally - only horizontally and vertically. In addition, a word that is already lying must always be applied to.
- Proper names of people and geographical objects may not be used: Karl, Anne, Schmidt, Kowalski, Berlin, Hamburg, Switzerland, Uruguay, the Rhine , etc. are prohibited. On the other hand, names may be used that have a different meaning in common usage, for example Horst (bird of prey's nest ), Urs (genitive of Ur), Müller (occupation) or Seine (possessive pronoun).
- Brand names ( Mercedes, Persil, etc.) are usually not allowed to be used. However, since the appearance of the 26th edition of the Spelling Dude, various brands have been valid words, such as Fön, Audi, Jeep and Tesafilm , as well as the game name Scrabble itself.
- Abbreviations are prohibited ( VHF, WC, TNT etc.). Short words that are spoken as one word may be used ( moped, transformer, kilo ). UFO and Radar were noted as inadmissible abbreviations up to the 24th edition of the Spelling Dudens, but in the 25th edition no longer have any abbreviations and are therefore valid as shorthand words from now on.
notation
To log a game, for example in tournaments, the first field of the word placed, the word placed and the number of points achieved can be noted on the individual moves, using both the word-field-points and field-word-points sequence . For horizontal words, the field is specified with xy , for vertical words with yx , where x denotes the row and y the column, counting from the top left. Already existing letters are put in brackets; Jokers are noted with lower case letters. Invalid words can be marked with an asterisk (*). If there are additional words across the laying direction, these can optionally be added after a slash (/). For example, a game can start with the following moves:
- 8G LACK 22
- H7 H (A) NF 8
- * J5 DIR (K)
- 10H (F) aX 28
- 11E GRASS / (HEMP) S 23
The written notation facilitates the binding determination of the placed jokers. In the above example, the word FAX can no longer be subsequently reinterpreted as FIX .
strategy
Among other things, due to the random factor that arises from trailing the letters and the very large, rapidly multiplying number of possible moves (ie valid words), Scrabble is a strategically complex game; This is also shown in the fact that, unlike other strategy games such as chess or Go, in which no random factors or unknown information (the letters of the other player) play a role, the best computer programs are at best considered to be on par with the strongest human players.
The primary goal of scoring as many points as possible in each move is only part of the optimal strategy, as each move has a long-term effect, for example by keeping cheap or difficult-to-use letters on the bench or the other player having chances for scoring Trains built or opened. Computer programs such as Quackle therefore do not always play the move with the most points, but try to simulate several moves beyond how the game will develop.
In particular, the 50 additional points that you get for a "bingo" (a move in which all seven letters are discarded) create an incentive to keep as promising letter combinations as possible on the bench. The two jokers in particular should therefore not be used for too few points.
Tournaments and championships
Tournament rules
In the case of official Scrabble tournaments, which are under the patronage of the Scrabble Deutschland eV association in Germany , additional provisions apply in addition to the general rules of the game described above, which are intended to ensure that the tournament runs smoothly and help avoid disputes. These are set out in the tournament rules (TSO) . There are comparable regulations for international tournaments. Worldwide tournaments are administered by the World English Language Scrabble Players Association (WESPA) , among others , while the North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA) is authoritative in North America .
The most important addition to the rules of the game by the TSO is the time limit: In order to avoid delays in the timing of the tournament, the reflection time per game is usually limited to 30 (in English-speaking Scrabble usually 25) minutes per player. Special clocks similar to those used in chess are used for measurement. If a player exceeds the cooling-off time, this leads to a 10 point deduction for every further minute or part thereof; however, if the game is overdrawn for 5 minutes, it is aborted and counted as a defeat.
In German-language tournaments, the entries in the spelling dude and all inflected forms that can be derived from them are considered permissible. All such shapes up to 9 letters long are compiled in an official list. To clarify longer word forms at tournaments, a referee looks up the corresponding word in the Duden. Players are not allowed to use dictionaries, lists or other resources during the game. The tournament rules do not prohibit the deliberate (or suspected) placement of invalid words and is a common aspect of game tactics, especially in international Scrabble. Anyone who considers a word placed by the other player to be invalid can contest the move, i.e. H. get the word checked; if it turns out to be valid, 10 points are deducted from the contesting player; if it is actually not allowed, the other player must take back the move and pass.
While the general rules of the Scrabble game allow for up to four players, tournaments are basically one on one.
German-language tournaments and championships
The German-speaking tournament with the longest tradition to date is the ZEIT Scrabble Tournament , initiated by Wolfgang Lechner and held annually since 2000 . Since it was the only major tournament in the first few years of its existence, the term unofficial German championship was coined for this - especially by ZEIT itself - although three-way and knockout games were held up to 2008, which is clear deviated from the character of usual tournaments (in other countries as well as those in Germany) and included a higher luck factor. In addition, some of the participant places were given out as tournament prizes, which also did not correspond to the character of a real championship. Previous multiple winners of the ZEIT tournament are Claudia Aumüller (2002, 2009 and 2015), Blanca Gröbli-Canonica (2005 and 2006) and Ulla Trappe (2012 and 2013).
Since 2010 the association Scrabble Germany e. V. now holds official German-speaking German championships . So far, these have always been played in a total of 20 rounds of the preliminary and main round as well as the two finals of the final round. For the first three games of the preliminary round, the participants are divided into subgroups of comparable skill level according to their Elo placement, in which "everyone against everyone" competes according to the "round robin" system. Everyone is playing against an opponent who has as many victories and defeats as himself. The fourth round starts the main round, in which the player pairings are determined according to a variant of the Swiss system . The two players who are in the lead after the 20th round contest a final consisting of a home and away leg. Whoever scores the higher total of points in these two finals will emerge as the winner. The following German Scrabble championships were held according to this tournament mode, in which around 70 to 80 participants from Germany, Switzerland and Austria competed against each other. The first official German champion in 2010 was Ulla Trappe , who also won this title in 2012 and 2015.
German Scrabble Championships
| DM | year | date | venue | German champion | Runner-up | third | Attendees |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | 2010 | May 13-16 | Bad Kissingen | Ulla Trappe | Petra Dingler | Ingrid Nöth | 77 |
| 2. | 2011 | 25th June | Bad Kissingen | Maria Fig | Ulla Trappe | Jörg Diersen | 69 |
| 3. | 2012 | May 17-20 | Nienburg / Weser | Ulla Trappe | Theo Kardel | Christof Pitzer | 68 |
| 4th | 2013 | May 14th - 17th | Nienburg / Weser | Uschi Müller | Martin Gahlow | Stefan Merx | 68 |
| 5. | 2014 | May 29th - June 1st | Detmold | Ben Berger | Claudia Aumüller | Maria Fig | 64 |
| 6th | 2015 | May 14th - 17th | Detmold | Ulla Trappe | Theo Kardel | Jörg Diersen | 66 |
| 7th | 2016 | May 5-8 | Dusseldorf | Ben Berger | Timon Boerner | Regula Schilling | 78 |
| 8th. | 2017 | 25th June | Dusseldorf | Stefan Merx | Theo Kardel | Nadja Dobesch | 67 |
| 9. | 2018 | May 10-13 | Stuttgart | Ben Berger | Timon Boerner | Uschi Müller | 66 |
| 10. | 2019 | May 30th - June 2nd | Stuttgart | Timon Boerner | Liesbeth Schön | Uschi Müller | 61 |
| 11. | 2020 | Canceled due to corona pandemic | Rotenburg ad Fulda | - - - | - - - | - - - | 0 |
In total there are around 20 tournaments in the German-speaking tournament landscape, which usually take place annually. In addition to the German championship, an important tournament is the league of champions, which takes place every two years and for which the winners (and runners-up) of all major tournaments qualify. The previous winners of the competition, which has been taking place since 2013, are Liesbeth Schön, Theo Kardel, Timon Boerner and Ben Berger.
English language tournaments and championships
In contrast to Germany, there have been Scrabble clubs and tournaments internationally for a long time; The game is particularly widespread in English - despite or perhaps because of different reference dictionaries in North America on the one hand and the rest of the world on the other. The World Cup, which takes place every two years, regularly attracts a lot of attention. Most recently, New Zealander Nigel Richards won the tournament in 2019.
In a competition held for the first time in 2018, in which "national teams" from different countries and regions competed against each other, the team from Australia prevailed.
Known and successful players
International
- Nigel Richards
- Probably the best known and most successful Scrabble player worldwide is the New Zealander Nigel Richards , who lives in Malaysia . He won the English-language world championships in 2007, 2011, 2013, 2018 and 2019 (as well as the competing "WESPAC" world championship in 2019) and is widely regarded as by far the best player in the world. However, Richards received special media attention for his World Cup victory in French-speaking Scrabble in July 2015. The media were particularly interested in the fact that he hardly speaks any French himself and, in preparation for the tournament, simply memorized the words permitted in French Scrabble within nine weeks learned.
- Mikki Nicholson
- The transsexual British top player Mikki Nicholson (died 2014) received greater media attention for her victory at the national British championships in 2010. This was mainly due to her extravagant appearance; in the finale, for example, she wore a pink wig.
Other top players who have shaped the English-speaking Scrabble in recent years are Pakorn Nemitrmansuk (world champion 2009, runner-up world champion 2011), Komol (world championship finalist 2013) and Craig Beevers from England (winner of the unofficial world championships 2014).
In German-speaking countries
In the early days of the Zeit tournament, in which the German champions were played until 2009, the field was largely even and some players were able to enter the list of winners during that time. To be mentioned here are for example Blanca Gröbli-Canonica from Switzerland, who was the first to win the tournament twice, as well as Claudia Aumüller and Jörg Diersen, who stood out with various victories in other tournaments; all three still belong to the top group of German-speaking scrabblers.
From 2010 the rise of Ulla Trappe began. She played her first tournament in 2009 and was named best newcomer in the same year. In the following years she won the German championship twice (2010, 2012), soon became the first in the ranking and was named the best tournament player by SDeV from 2010 to 2012.
Since around 2013, two younger players, Ben Berger and Timon Boerner, have dominated the tournament scene, and they have been taking turns at the top of the German rankings and in being named the most successful tournament player of the year.
With victories in the German Championship or the League of Champions , however, other players also continued to celebrate successes, including Liesbeth Schön, Theo Kardel, Maria Feige, Uschi Müller, Regula Schilling, Friedrich Engelke and many more.
The highest number of points in a single tournament game to date (as of April 2020) is 716, achieved by Doris Methner in 2019.
Elo rankings
As in other games such as chess or Go , Elo numbers are also assigned in Scrabble in order to be able to compare the skill level of the individual players. For worldwide Scrabble (Global Scrabble) such an Elo ranking list is kept by the World English-language Scrabble Players' Association (WESPA).
An Elo ranking list has also been maintained for German-speaking Scrabble since 2010, which currently (as of April 2020) includes around 250 players. On the basis of all tournaments held since 2005 that meet certain criteria, an Elo score is determined for the participants in these tournaments.
variants
Simultaneous Scrabble
In this variant, the same letters are drawn for all players and everyone notes on a piece of paper which word they would put on the board when it was their turn in this situation. After a time for all to consider, for example three minutes, each player gets the points for his word. The best word is placed on the board, the letters that have not been misplaced are filled up to seven and the next round begins. In the end, the player with the highest total of points wins.
Strategic thinking does not make sense with this variant. It is important to find the Scrabble train that earns the most points.
Advantages:
- Any number of people can play.
- No waiting time for another player to act - everyone thinks at the same time.
- The luck with the letters is switched off - the same requirements always apply to each player.
Disadvantage:
- Poor performance cannot be blamed on bad luck when drawing letters.
- It is not possible to rearrange the letters (i.e. thinking with your fingers) - unless you have one set of stones for each player and do not shy away from the effort of picking out the draw for everyone in each round.
- The tactical component is greatly reduced.
This variant is used in the postal game and on the Internet (for example as simultaneous Scrabble). From 2000 to 2018, a simultaneous role was played with the readers every summer during that time . The time to think about these remote games is between one and three weeks and between ten and (at the time) several thousand other players participate in a game.
Scrabble solo (also: Solitair-Scrabble)
Scrabble can also be played alone. You can try to get as many points as possible or to fit all letters. You can play with one or two benches (you then simulate an opponent). This variant is suitable for Scrabble training or as a word-finding and memory training game . If you play with 8 (or more) stones the game becomes easier. It can then even be played with dementia patients as long as their ability to concentrate is still sufficient. A simplification can also be achieved by separating vowels and consonants, you can then choose from which pile (or from which bag) you want to take a letter stone.
Super scrabble
In 2007 Mattel launched Super Scrabble , which is distributed by Piatnik . The number of playing fields and the stock of letters were almost doubled compared to the standard game. There are new bonus fields on the game board: four times a four-fold word value and eight times a four-fold letter value. The rules of the game have remained unchanged - just like the number of letters that are available for a move. The rules of the game also recommend a game with five or six players - but you have to use banks from another Scrabble game.
The playing field of the standard version has been expanded by three fields in each direction and has been provided with old and new bonus fields in a systematic and symmetrical manner. It has 441 (21 × 21) playing fields with 120 bonus fields. To get the letters of Super Scrabble, the following four letters each have to be removed from the double set of letters of the conventional game: E, I, N, R. Including the four blank pieces, the game contains 200 game pieces.
Scrabble Blitz!
Also in 2007 came Scrabble Blitz! a scrabble dice game on the market. The game is played on a reduced game board with 9 × 9 fields and a total of twelve different dice, which are provided with letters instead of the numbers. The first player plays with seven dice and tries to place a word on the board with the letters rolled. The next player takes the remaining dice and places his word next to the word on the board. The next player then takes the dice that were placed in the penultimate move from the board and in turn forms a new word. In this way, only one word remains on the board (if a word is only extended, all dice come back into play). Each player has 60 seconds for his turn. The winner is whoever has reached 200 points first.
The distribution of points is the same as in the board game. The stock of 72 letters is distributed as follows: 11 × E; 6 × N; each 4 × A, I, R, S, T, U; 3 × each of D, H, M; 2 × G, L, O each; 1 × the remaining letters including Ä, Ö, Ü and a blank page. Instead of Q, you play with QU.
More Scrabble variants
A large number of game variants have appeared in recent years: Scrabble cards came onto the market in 1997. Party Scrabble was released in 2004, Scrabble Trickster in 2010, Scrabble Dash in 2011, Scrabble Freestyle in 2013 and Scrabble Speed in 2014.
"Letter YOLO" advertising campaign
On September 24, 2018, Mattel announced that Scrabble would be renamed to letter YOLO in Germany on the occasion of its 70th anniversary . In addition, youth language words should now be allowed. YOLO was the youth word of the year in 2012 . Among other things, on Deutschlandfunk Nova , the supposed renaming was doubted and it was suspected that it was a marketing campaign. On September 27th, that assumption was confirmed by Horizont , a marketing journal, after Mattel admitted the joke on Facebook. A marketing agency had come up with the prank on behalf of Mattel. MC Fitti was hired for the advertising campaign . Many media outlets fell for the joke and reported the alleged name change. In addition, there was a violent shit storm against the name change, which was planned by the company.
Scrabble in the media
Scrabble is often depicted in movies, TV series, and books. There is, for example, the dispute about the validity of words, which is humorously targeted (such as the examples in Loriot's film Oedipussi and the television series Sketchup , Listen, Who Is Hammering and Golden Girls ). Sometimes Scrabble is also taken up as a linguistic and social activity in other contexts (as in the film Snow Cake ).
Movies
- Both in Roman Polanski's film Rosemaries Baby and in the novel by Ira Levin , the main character Rosemary notices through a Scrabble game that the name of her neighbor Roman Castevet is actually an anagram for Steven Marcato: the son of a Satanist who was once in the house , in which she now lives, was murdered.
- A scene on the subject of Scrabble can be found in the Loriot film Oedipussi . Paul Winkelmann alias Loriot spends a games evening with his mother and her ladies' party where they play Scrabble. One of the old ladies extends the word "dog" to the word "dog nose". As it is, however, pointed out by their fellow players that it correctly dog s nose had hot, she takes the word from the board and places instead the word "tail dog", which would, however, only to even greater discussion leads ( "I also before my Being able to lay jellyfish dumplings ”). This game situation is a reference to the old rules of the game where eight pieces were played.
- In the film Black Hawk Down , during a routine flight, it is discussed whether “Limo” (short for limousine) is a word according to the Scrabble rules.
- In the film Snow Cake , Alex Hughes plays a game of Scrabble with the autistic Linda, according to the rules of their daughter who died in an accident. Their rules, which take into account the special condition of their mother, state that words can be made up as long as they can be substantiated by an example sentence. Linda invents the word "Dazlious" to express something indescribably beautiful and uses it to beat Alex. He is initially annoyed about the special rule he invented, but when he has to leave Linda again, he can only describe the beauty of the Canadian landscape with this word. The game of Scrabble thus becomes a metaphor for Alex's newly developed ability to see the world through the eyes of Linda who is autistic.
- In the film Sneakers with Robert Redford, a Scrabble game is used to solve anagrams .
- The film Christine, based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King, starts with a scene that demonstrates the character of the initial loser and later Christine owner Arnie Cunningham: He tells his friend Dennis about a Scrabble game with his parents that led to the argument the admissibility of the word fellatio decided victory or defeat.
- In the video clip for his song Tanzen Scrabble, singer Ilja Schierbaum plays on a wooden table, which he angrily knocks over while running backwards.
TV series
- In the Simpsons episode 2 ( Bart Becomes a Genius ) the family plays Scrabble. Homer happens to have the word “Oxidize” on his filing bench, but doesn't know the word and instead puts the D to an O for the word “Do”. Bart puts the word "Kwyjibo", which supposedly means a fat, fat, stupid, North American monkey that is losing its hair. Then Homer, who is eating a banana, tries to beat Bart.
- In the comedy series Little Britain (1st season, episode 3), the hypnotist Kenny Craig (he plays with his mother) extends the word "Cupboard" to "Cupboardy" (which does not exist, but it counts more than 100 points) . His mother accepts the word after hypnosis and says it means "something like a closet".
- Brad, the eldest son from the television series Listen, Who's Hammering , extends the word "melon" used by Randy to "meloneology". When Tim sees this, he calls it "the teaching of people called Mel".
- The words "Tropenhelm (ut)", Guardian Angel (bert) and "Bienenvolk (er)" were extended in Sketchup (with Diether Krebs and his partner) in order to get more points.
- Another scene can be found in the American series Golden Girls . Dorothy and Sophia play Scrabble. Sophia puts “Disdam” and has won the game. When Dorothy doubts this and asks Sophia to form a sentence with the word, she replies “You're no good in Disdam game”. In the German dubbing, the word was changed to "damn".
- Scrabble plays an interesting role in the series Six Feet Under : Claire, Ruth and their sister and niece, who are demonstratively united in Christian charity, play Scrabble. To shock the others, Claire plays "Hell", from which the other girl makes "Hello". Scrabble is also used later in the scene to point out the difference between the mother / daughter pairs and that Claire and Ruth have more in common than they wanted to admit before.
- In CSI episode 88 (Fire Devil), one of the players is forced to swallow the letters of his (invalid) word in a tournament of the fictional game Logos . The representation of the tournament contains numerous allusions to the American Scrabble scene and its jargon: The English version speaks of "blue haired ladies" (a derogatory term for an older lady playing Scrabble). The victim's record number of points (735) is also reminiscent of Scrabble.
- In the ninth episode of the Two and a Half Men series , Alan Harper comes out as a passionate Scrabble player.
- In the Feuerstein family episode "Fred the Climber", Fred and the newsboy Arnold play Scrabble together. Fred puts "CAT" together (worth 4 points) and Arnold adds to "CATACLYSM" (cataclysm = sudden destruction), which gives Arnold 79 points and wins. But Fred is a bad loser, grabs a straw and adds his last three letters "ARF" to a "Z", resulting in the word "ZARF" (worth 12 points according to Fred) (although in the scene it was where " To see Cataclysm "there was no Z that he could have attached) and said," You don't use it too often in everyday language. I puff. You puff. He puff. We puff. " - The word "Zarf" is also used in real life: in the Middle East and the like. a. for a cup of coffee.
- The Tanner family plays Scrabble in the ALF episode "Reden ist Blech". Alf puts the word "QUIDNUNC" together. Willie finds it in the Duden as "another word for gossip aunt", whereupon Alf says "On Melmac this is someone who dresses himself in meat". Alf gets 248 points for this, it's back to it, adds two more letters, so that "QUIDNUNCLE" is created, which he explains with "KlatschTANTE, KlatschONKEL", whereupon an "OBJECTIVE!" the rest of the family follows.
Tv shows
- In the show Late Lounge of hr-tv's passed the nameplates of the moderator Roberto Cappelluti and his guests from Scrabble letters.
literature
- In the novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979), Scrabble is played. While his friend Zaphod Beeblebrox has disappeared without a trace, it is said that Arthur Dent looks worriedly at the board in front of him. A few lines further, however, the reader learns that he is by no means worried about Zaphod, but rather sunk in a game of Scrabble with Tricia McMillan. A little later, with the help of a scrabble game, he determines the question that belongs to the answer to the meaning of life (answer 42 ; question: "How much is nine multiplied by six?")
- In the novel The Maid's Report (1985), the commandant tries to seduce the protagonist Desfred into a kiss after two games of the game, which is forbidden in the dystopian future (Chapter 23).
- A Scrabble scene can also be found with Calvin and Hobbes (in the first album Jetzt geht's rund from 1985): Calvin proudly lays “it”. The two points he receives for it make him less than satisfied - and he curses loudly. “You really learn new words,” comments Hobbes. He then sets " cyclothymia " to 3 times the word value (150 points). Calvin counters with "in" (3 points). Hobbes replies with " nucleoplasm " (40 points). In the end, Calvin pounds the game indignantly into the corner.
Scrabble in other languages
Scrabble has appeared in 29 languages so far. In addition to English and German , this includes Turkish , French , Spanish and the most important other European languages. There is also Scrabble in languages without the Latin alphabet, including Russian , Greek , Hebrew , Thai, and Arabic .
Commercially available versions
Scrabble was available in Germany in November 2009 in the following versions:
- Original (conventional version with 15 × 15 fields and 102 stones)
- Compact (designed for use on the move with reduced dimensions and magnetic or plug-in stones)
- Prestige (playing field with grids to prevent letters from slipping)
- Deluxe (noble version)
- with big letters
- Super scrabble
- Anniversary edition (letter distribution and presentation from the 1950s)
- Scrabble Blitz! (Dice game)
- as a card game
- as a puzzle game for children
Web links
- Scrabble Germany e. V.
- Scrabble at the European Game Collectors Guild
- Scrabble in the game database BoardGameGeek (English)
- World Scrabble Championships (Engl.)
- German Scrabble search
- German Scrabble search with blank stone function and beginning / end of word
literature
- Werner Scholze-Stubenrecht, Sebastian Herzog; Dudenredaktion (ed.): Duden, Scrabble dictionary. (Everything that applies: from "Ablüdest" to "Zyanen"; 120,000 words and word forms in the German language), 2nd, revised and updated edition. Dudenverlag, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-411-73293-7 .
Individual evidence
- ^ National Scrabble Association: History of SCRABBLE. Archived from the original on December 8, 2017 ; accessed on November 30, 2019 (English).
- ^ Marion Faber, Helmut Schwarz: Die Spielmacher. JW Spear & Sons - History of a Game Factory. Nuremberg 1997.
- ^ Print in the 1955 edition
- ↑ a b Brian Sheppard: World-championship-caliber Scrabble ☆☆ SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the USA by Hasbro Inc., in Canada by Hasbro Canada Corporation, and throughout the rest of the world by JW Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. In: Artificial Intelligence . tape 134 , no. 1 , January 1, 2002, ISSN 0004-3702 , p. 241-275 , doi : 10.1016 / S0004-3702 (01) 00166-7 ( sciencedirect.com [accessed April 14, 2020]).
- ↑ Mindsports Academy: Man vs Machine. Retrieved April 14, 2020 (English).
- ^ Missing the Point: When to Sacrifice Points in Scrabble. In: Breaking the Game. Retrieved April 14, 2020 (American English).
- ↑ Quackle - kwak! Retrieved April 14, 2020 .
- ↑ Rack management. Retrieved April 14, 2020 .
- ↑ Mark Abadi: I'm a nationally ranked Scrabble player, and these are the 7 biggest mistakes I see inexperienced players make. Retrieved April 14, 2020 .
- ↑ About us | Scrabble info. Accessed April 14, 2020 (German).
- ↑ TSO tournament rules | Scrabble info. Accessed April 14, 2020 (German).
- ↑ WESPA Resources. Retrieved April 14, 2020 (UK English).
- ↑ Official Tournament Rules - NASPAWiki. Retrieved April 14, 2020 .
- ↑ Word list | Scrabble info. Accessed April 14, 2020 (German).
- ↑ Lia Ryerson: 10 obscure Scrabble rules you probably never knew - and how to use them to your advantage. Retrieved April 14, 2020 .
- ↑ Tournament overview | Scrabble info. Accessed April 13, 2020 (German).
- ↑ League of Champions Info | Scrabble info. Accessed April 13, 2020 (German).
- ↑ League of Champions 2021 - Qualification | Scrabble info. Accessed April 13, 2020 (German).
- ^ Charles Bethea: The Battle Over Scrabble's Dictionaries. Accessed April 13, 2020 (English).
- ↑ Nigel Richards wins 2019 World Scrabble Championship. Accessed April 13, 2020 (English).
- ↑ Alchemist Cup round 45.Retrieved April 13, 2020 .
- ↑ SCRABBLE HONOR BOARD. Retrieved April 13, 2020 (UK English).
- ↑ Oliver Roeder: What Makes Nigel Richards The Best Scrabble Player On Earth. In: FiveThirtyEight. August 8, 2014, Retrieved April 13, 2020 (American English).
- ↑ A way with words. Accessed April 13, 2020 (English).
- ↑ kenjicmatsumoto: The Best Players I ever played: 1-10. In: Kenji Matsumoto. September 10, 2014, accessed April 13, 2020 .
- ↑ Kim Willsher: The French Scrabble champion who doesn't speak French . In: The Guardian . July 21, 2015, ISSN 0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed April 13, 2020]).
- ↑ Hall of Fame - tournament winner | Scrabble info. Accessed April 14, 2020 (German).
- ↑ Elo ranking | Scrabble info. Accessed April 14, 2020 (German).
- ↑ Hall of Fame - tournament winner | Scrabble info. Accessed April 14, 2020 (German).
- ↑ Elo ranking - front runner | Scrabble info. Accessed April 14, 2020 (German).
- ↑ Hall of Fame - SDeV Honors | Scrabble info. Accessed April 14, 2020 (German).
- ↑ Hall of Fame - Records | Scrabble info. Accessed April 14, 2020 (German).
- ↑ WESPA RATINGS. Retrieved November 30, 2019 .
- ↑ a b Elo ranking - front runner. Scrabble Germany e. V., accessed on September 27, 2018 .
- ↑ Elo ranking. Scrabble Germany e. V., September 25, 2018, accessed on September 27, 2018 .
- ↑ a b Scrabble game instructions. (PDF, 1.2 MiB) Mattel, March 30, 2004, accessed November 30, 2019 .
- ↑ The TIME Scrabble Summer. Retrieved May 13, 2019 .
- ↑ The sensation for the anniversary - SCRABBLE is now called LETTER YOLO! Mattel, September 24, 2018; accessed September 26, 2018 .
- ^ The youth word of the year 2012. Langenscheidt, archived from the original on December 20, 2012 ; accessed on September 26, 2018 .
- ↑ Thilo Jahn: “Scrabble” becomes “Letter Yolo”, says Mattel. In: Hielscher or Haase on Deutschlandfunk Nova . September 26, 2018, accessed September 26, 2018 .
- ↑ Not because of the letters YOLO. (Article) Horizont, September 27, 2018, accessed September 27, 2018 .
- ↑ Gloss on the new Scrabble FAZ
- ↑ Shitstorm vs. Mattel euronews.com