National Scrabble Day

Today is National Scrabble Day! Observed annually on April 13th, 1899, this holiday celebrates this popular board game on the birthday of its inventor, Alfred Mosher Butts. This American architect created the game, which he originally named “Lexiko.”  Its name was then changed to “Criss-Cross Worlds,” and later came to be known as Scrabble.

Scrabble is a family-friendly board game sold in over 120 countries, in 29 different languages! It’s so popular that it’s found in approximately one-third of all American homes, and was inducted into the National Toy Hall of fame in 2004.

Scrabble is a word game where 2 to 4 players place tiles, each having a single letter, on a board such that the tiles form words. Like a crossword puzzle, the words have to be built on a 225 square Scrabble board from top to bottom or from left to right.

How to Celebrate?

  • Gather around with your family and friends and play Scrabble.
  • Throw a Scrabble themed party. Play a game of Scrabble or two. Whoever wins takes home a thesaurus or a dictionary.
  • Like baking? Whip up a batch of Scrabble tile cookies to serve at your Scrabble party.
  • Have some extra Scrabble tiles lying around? Use them to make some Scrabble jewellery for the Scrabble lovers in your life.
  • Don\’t have time to play a real game of Scrabble? Download one of the many Scrabble word game apps out there and play while you are out and about. Just remember not to play when driving or operating heavy and dangerous machinery or when in a meeting.

Scrabble is played with two to four players who score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a game board marked with a 15 x 15 grid.

In the United States, the name Scrabble is a trademark of Hasbro, Inc. Scrabble is sold in 121 countries with 29 different language versions.

Worldwide, over One hundred and fifty million sets have been sold with sets being found in nearly one-third of American homes.

  • 1984 – Scrabble became a daytime game show on NBC
  • 2004 – Scrabble was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame
  • Some cities sponsor Scrabble tournaments on the weekend closest to National Scrabble Day
  • The word “scrabble” means to “grope frantically.”

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