Researcher: Letter values in Scrabble are all kinds of screwed up.

From the I Have Way Too Much Time on My Hands file...

Researcher Joshua Lewis says the letter values in Scrabble are a whole bag of crazy ever since the makers of Scrabble changed their official dictionary to allow a number of short words with the letters Q, Z, and X.

According to the BBC, Lewis runs a program called Vallet, which calculates proper Scrabble letter values based on...OHMYGODICANTBELIEVEIMTALKINGABOUTHIS...

In explaining why his overall point distribution is lower, Lewis blames Q which, as he puts it, is an "outlier", much harder to play than other letters.

"You get this justified separation between Q at 10 and Z and J at six [points], and in general the non-Q letters are a bit more compressed in value.

[[[[[[pauses]]]]]]

You know what's great?

Girlfriends/boyfriends.

BREAKING NEWS: United States National Scrabble Championship marred by cheating scandal

Geeks and English snobs around the country have gathered in Florida for a week of avoiding the sun and beach at all cost in order to play Scrabble indoors at the United States National Championship.

Now, all that is precious and socially awkward has come crashing down, as a cheating scandal has erupted.

In the 24th round of the 28 round tournament, a competitor was seen concealing two blank tiles to use at his discretion. The only thing more blank than the tiles was this anonymous competitor's moral compass.

When confronted by organizing officials who undoubtedly asked politely while dancing around the topic, the cheater crumbled under pressure and came clean. He was immediately disqualified from the tournament.

John D. Williams Jr., Executive Director of the National Scrabble Association, said this is the first incident of hoodwinkery in the history of the Scrabble championship.

"The Scrabble world is abuzz," Williams told the Associated Press.

You know what would also get the Scrabble world buzzing? Seeing the sun sometime. A suntan. A little vitamin D.

Scrabble now making you question reality.

Here I was thinking that Scrabble was for the literate crowd, and it turns out regular Scrabble is just some sort of anti-literature, authoritarian syndicate mind screw. Because, otherwise, what's the point of this new version?

According to the thelibraryshop.org, this new Scrabble: Book Lovers Edition has:

• Traditional Scrabble game board customized with a literary theme.
• 26 Plot Twist Cards provide directives for added game play and the opportunity to enhance scoring.
• Players earn bonus points for book related words.

Now...............aren't words generally related to books? Like all those pages of ink mean something, right?

Scrabble for font fanatics

The headline on this designtaxi.com story says "For Typography Enthusiasts, A Limited Edition Of Scrabble."

Typography enthusiasts--there's one hell of a dinner party. After a few cocktails I bet the claws come out about slab serif fonts.

Oh, and this limited edition Scrabble? It retails for $199. So I guess typography enthusiasts aren't money enthusiasts.





photo: coolmaterial.com

Head fissure #4

The longest word in the English language which all of its letters are in alphabetical order is Aegilops--which is a grass genus.

If you're going to be a Scrabble snob and argue that Aegilops is Latin AND a proper noun, well, not only are you a pest, but here are the next three longest words falling under the same definition--all two-letters shorter: almost, biopsy, chintz.

Bam.

Cheez-It Scrabble: For the very literate snacker.

Somehow, Cheez-Its + Scrabble = corporate synergy.

What the hell's a Scrabble Junior though? According to the Amazon description, it's a Scrabble board pre-printed with words for kids to spell out one letter at a time.

Also known as Scrabble for Math Majors.

Scrabble creator hated plural words.

No, really. He had a bias against the letter S when he created the game.

According to Plugged In, Alfred Mosher Butts--the creator of Scrabble--needed a way to figure out the distribution of letters in his new game. He decided that the New York Times served his purpose, using the frequency of letters as they appeared on the front page as the basis for how to distribute them in his new game.

Except the letter S.

Butts apparently decided that S was too easy. It could be used to pluralize words and make cheap points.

Which is true. We all know those people that add an S to the end of a triple word score that already generated, oh, 49,000 points for you, and immediately negate your genius.

Now, you can take comfort in the fact that Mr. Butts really dislikes your friends, too.

Online Scrabble is a den of shady intellectualism.

Scrabble is always an awkward game to play as an English major. If you play with non-English major friends--and they beat you--they claim you're not worthy of that English degree.

But if you win these same people claim they were at a disadvantage all along. (But their engineering degree and six-figure income probably means they're the true victors in life.)

"muzjiks": actually not Yanni's musical stylings.

"Muzjiks" is defined as a group of Russian peasants. But should a Russian peasant use that word at a high stakes, big-money Scrabble tournament, well...they...won't be a muzjik any longer.

According to people who know these things, "muzjiks" is the word with the highest point total you can get during a game of Scrabble in which you use all seven letters on your rack. 29 points just on the letters alone. That doesn't count double and triple letter/word scores, or the 50 point bonus you'd get for using all seven letters at once. Then you're talking 128 points.

Pssh. That's just for overachievers. All that matters in Scrabble is how to leech off other people's words. Hoard every S you get and add it to big words. And don't fear the X. Is there an A or an O around? Voilà. You just got 9 points.

Of course, you won't earn Scrabble victory this way. Just the passive aggressive vitriol of your competition. But isn't that the greatest victory of all?