By: Group IV

IV-7 (Deuteronomy)
 History Of Scrabble
Alfred Butts manually tabulated the frequency of letters in
words of various length, using examples in a dictionary, the
Saturday Evening Post, the New York Herald Tribune, and the 
New York Times. This was used to determine the number and
scores of tiles in the game.
In 1938, architect Alfred Mosher Butts created the game as a
variation on an earlier word game he invented called Lexiko.
The two games had the same set of letter tiles, whose
distributions and point values Butts worked out meticulously
performing a frequency analysis of letters from various sources
including The New York Times. The new game, which he called
"Criss-Crosswords," added the 15-by-15 game board and the
crossword-style game play. He manufactured a few sets
himself, but was not successful in selling the game to any major
game manufacturers of the day.
 In 1948, James Brunot, a resident of Newtown, Connecticut — and one of the
few owners of the original Criss-Crosswords game — bought the rights to
manufacture the game in exchange for granting Butts a royalty on every unit
sold. Though he left most of the game (including the distribution of letters)
unchanged, Brunot slightly rearranged the "premium" squares of the board and
simplified the rules; he also changed the name of the game to "Scrabble," a
real word which means "to scratch frantically." In 1949, Brunot and his family
made sets in a converted former schoolhouse in Dodgingtown, a section of
Newtown. They made 2,400 sets that year, but lost money. According to
legend, Scrabble's big break came in 1952 when Jack Strauss, president of 
Macy's, played the game on vacation. Upon returning from vacation, he was
surprised to find that his store did not carry the game. He placed a large order
and within a year, "everyone had to have one." In 1952, unable to meet
demand himself, Brunot sold manufacturing rights to Long Island-based 
Selchow and Righter (one of the manufacturers who, like Parker Brothers and 
Milton Bradley Company, had previously rejected the game). Selchow &
Righter bought the trademark to the game in 1972. JW Spears began selling
the game in Australia and the UK on January 19, 1955. The company is now a
subsidiary of Mattel, Inc. In 1986, Selchow and Righter sold the game to 
Coleco, who soon after went bankrupt. The company's assets, including
Scrabble and Parchesi were purchased by Hasbro.
 Game details
The game is played by two to four players on a square (or nearly square) board with a
15-by-15 grid of cells (individually known as "squares"), each of which accommodates a
single letter tile. In official club and tournament games, play is always between two
players (or, occasionally, between two teams each of which collaborates on a single
rack).
The board is marked with "premium" squares, which multiply the number of points
awarded: dark red "triple-word" squares, pink "double-word" squares, dark blue "triple-
letter" squares, and light blue "double-letter" squares [In 2008, Hasbro changed the
colors of the premiums squares to orange for TW, red for DW, blue for DL, and green for
TL]. The center square (H8) is often marked with a star or logo, and counts as a double-
word square.
The game contains 100 tiles, 98 of which are marked with a letter and a point value
ranging from 1 to 10. The number of points of each lettered tile is based on the letter's
frequency in standard English writing; commonly used letters such as E or O are worth
one point, while less common letters score higher, with Q and Z each worth 10 points.
The game also has two blank tiles that are unmarked and carry no point value. The
blank tiles can be used as substitutes for any letter; once laid on the board, however, the
choice is fixed.
 Notation System
In the notation system common in tournament play, columns are labeled "A-O" and
rows "1-15". A play is usually identified in the format xy WORD score or WORD xy
score, where xdenotes the column or row on which the play's main word
extends, y denotes the second coordinate of the main word's first letter,
and WORD is the main word. Although unnecessary, additional words formed by the
play are occasionally listed after the main word and a slash. In the case where the
play of a single tile formed words in each direction, one of the words is arbitrarily
chosen to serve as the main word for purposes of notation.
When a blank tile is employed in the main word, the letter it has been chosen to
represent is indicated with a lower case letter, or, in handwritten notation, with a
square around the letter. Parentheses are sometimes also used to designate a
blank, although this may create confusion with a second (optional) function of
parentheses, namely indication of an existing letter or word that has been "played
through" by the main word.
Example 1:
A(D)DITiON(AL) D3 74
(played through the existing letter D and word AL, using a blank for the second I,
extending down the D column and beginning on row 3, and scoring 74 points)
 Sequence of Play

Before the game, the letter tiles are either put in an opaque bag or
placed face down on a flat surface. Opaque cloth bags and
customized tiles are staples of clubs and tournaments, where games
are rarely played without both.
Next, players decide the order in which they play. The normal
approach is for players to draw tiles: the player who picks the letter
closest to the beginning of the alphabet goes first (with blank tiles
ranked higher than A's). In North American tournaments, the rules of
the US-basedNorth American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA)
stipulate instead that players who have gone first in the fewest
number of games in the tournament have priority, or failing that,
those who have gone second the most. In the case of a tie, tiles are
drawn as in the standard rules.
 At the beginning of the game, and after each turn until the bag is
empty (or until there are no more face-down tiles), players draw tiles
to replenish their "racks", or tile-holders, with seven tiles, from which
they will make plays. Each rack is concealed from the other players.
During a turn, a player will have seven or fewer letter tiles in their
rack from which to choose a play. On each turn, a player has the
option to: (1) pass, forfeiting the turn and scoring nothing; (2)
exchange one or more tiles for an equal number from the bag,
scoring nothing, an option which is only available if at least seven
tiles remain in the bag; or (3) form a play on the board, adding its
value to the player's cumulative score.
A proper play uses any number of the player's tiles to form a single
continuous word ("main word") on the board, reading either left-to-
right or top-to-bottom. The main word must either use the letters of
one or more previously played words, or else have at least one of its
tiles horizontally or vertically adjacent to an already played word. If
words other than the main word are newly formed by the play, they
are scored as well, and are subject to the same criteria for
acceptability.
When the board is blank, the first word played must cover H8,
the center square. The word must consist of at least two
letters, extending horizontally or vertically. H8 is a premium
square, so the first player to play a word receives a double
score.
A blank tile may take the place of any letter. It remains as that
letter thereafter for the rest of the game. Individually, it scores
no points regardless of what letter it is designated, and is not
itself affected by premium tiles. However, its placement on a
double-word or triple-word square does cause the appropriate
premium to be scored for the word in which it is used. While
not allowed in official or tournament play, a common "
house rule" allows players to "recycle" blank tiles by later
substituting the corresponding letter tile.
After playing a word, the player draws letter tiles from the bag
to replenish their rack to seven tiles. If there are not enough
tiles in the bag to do so, the player takes all of the remaining
tiles.
 After a player plays a word, their opponent may choose to
challenge any or all the words formed by the play. If any of
the words challenged is found to be unacceptable, the play
is removed from the board, the player returns the newly
played tiles to their rack and their turn is forfeited. In
tournament play, a challenge is to the entire play rather
than any one word, so a judge (human or computer) is
used, and players are not entitled to know which word or
words caused the challenge to succeed. Penalties for
unsuccessfully challenging an acceptable play vary within
club and tournament play, and are described in greater
detail below.
With North American rules, the game ends when (1) one
player plays every tile in their rack, and there are no tiles
remaining in the bag (regardless of the tiles in their
opponent's rack); or (2) when six successive scoreless
turns have occurred and the score is not zero-zero.
 When the game ends, each player's score is reduced by
the sum of his/her unplayed letters. In addition, if a player
has used all of his or her letters, the sum of the other
player's unplayed letters is added to that player's score; in
tournament play, a player who "goes out" adds double this
sum, and the opponent is not penalized.
Scoreless turns can occur when a player passes, when a
player exchanges tiles, or when a player loses a
challenge. The latter rule varies slightly in international
tournaments.

Premium square colors

Square Original Current
Double letter Light blue Blue
Triple letter Dark blue Green
Double word Pink Red
Triple word Red Orange
 Scoring
Each word formed in the play is scored this way:
Any tile played from the player's rack onto a previously vacant square that is a "double-
letter" or "triple-letter" premium square has its point value doubled or tripled as indicated.
Add the normal point value of all other letters in the word (whether newly played or
existing).
For each newly played tile placed on a "double-word" premium square, the total of each
word containing that tile is doubled (or redoubled).
For each newly placed tile placed on a "triple-word" premium square, the total of each
word containing that tile is tripled (or re-tripled).
Premium squares affect the score of each word made in the same play by constituent
tiles played upon those squares. Premium squares, once played upon, are not counted
again in subsequent plays.
If a player uses all seven of the tiles in the rack in a single play, a bonus of 50 points is
added to the score of that play (this is called a "bingo" in Canada and the United States,
a "Scrabble" in Spain and a "bonus" elsewhere). These bonus points are added after
totaling the score for that turn.
When the letters to be drawn have run out, the final play can often determine the winner.
. This is particularly the case in close games with more than two
players. The player who goes out first gets the sum of all
remaining unplayed tiles added to their score. Players with tiles
remaining on their rack have the sum of their remaining tiles
subtracted from their score.
Acceptable words
Acceptable words are the primary entries in some chosen 
dictionary, and all of their inflected forms. Words that are
hyphenated, capitalized (such as proper nouns), or
apostrophized are not allowed, unless they also appear as
acceptable entries: "Jack" is a proper noun, but the word JACK
 is acceptable because it has other usages (automotive, 
vexillological, etc.) that are acceptable. Acronyms or
abbreviations, other than those that have been regularized (such
as AWOL, RADAR, and SCUBA), are not allowed. Variant
spellings, slang or offensive terms, archaic or obsolete terms,
and specialized jargon words are allowed if they meet all other
criteria for acceptability.
There are two popular competition word lists used in various
parts of the world: TWL and SOWPODS (also referred to as
"Collins"). The North American 2006 Official Tournament and
Club Word List, Second Edition (OWL2), became official for use
in American, Canadian, Israeli and Thai club and tournament
play on March 1, 2006 (or, for school use, the bowdlerized
Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, Fourth Edition (OSPD4)).
Early printings of OWL2 and OSPD4 must be amended
according to corrigenda posted at the National Scrabble
Association web site. North American competitions use the 
Long Words List for longer words.
The OWL2 and the OSPD4 are compiled using four (originally
five) major college-level dictionaries, including Merriam-
Webster (10th and 11th editions, respectively). If a word
appears (or historically appeared) in at least one of the
dictionaries, it is included in the OWL2 and the OSPD4, unless
the word has only an offensive meaning, in which case it is
only included in the OWL2.
 The key difference between the OSPD4 and the OWL2 is that
the OSPD4 is marketed for "home and school" use, and has
been expurgated of many words which their source dictionaries
judged offensive, rendering the Official Scrabble Players
Dictionary less fit for official Scrabble play. The OSPD4 is
available in bookstores, whereas the OWL2 is only available
from the National Scrabble Association's retail website 
wordgear.com (as of July 2009, NSA membership is no longer
required to purchase the OWL).
In all other countries the competition word list is
the Tournament and Club Word List (Collins) published in May
2007 (see SOWPODS), which lists all words of from 2 to 15
letters and is thus a complete reference. This list contains
every word in the OWL2 mentioned above plus words sourced
from Chambers and Collins English dictionaries. This book is
used to adjudicate at the World Scrabble Championship and all
other major international competitions outside of North
America.