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'Copyright' Is A Twenty-Point Word

"Copyright" is a Twenty-Point Word

Milan Alley
Thursday, January 17, 2008

In the depths of the Great Depression (okay, 1931), architect Alfred Mosher Butts began designing Lexiko in response to the observed decrease in interest of word-based games. Butts meticulously analyzed the frequencies of letters in newspapers and other printed works to create the ideal letter distribution for his game. Played with a set of one hundred square, cardboard tiles, but no board, players would draw at random nine tiles and attempt to construct words from their choices. In 1938, Butts began work on a variation of Lexiko, which he called "Criss-Cross Words," and added a 15-by-15 square game board and crossword-style game play. Several game manufacturers rejected the game design, but Butts was able to sell copies on his own. Unfortunately Butts' profits were not enough to recover his development expenses. Therefore, in 1948 he sold the rights to game-lover and Newtown, Connecticut lawyer James Brunot. Brunot made several minor adjustments to the design, simplified the rules, and renamed the game "Scrabble," a word which means "to grope frantically."
If the word "Scrabble" is brought up in any conversation, thoughts turn automatically to the board game. With over 100 million sets of the game having been sold in 29 different languages, it is probably one of the most well known and widely owned board games ever. You can play "Scrabble" on your computer, you can play "Scrabble" while you travel, you can even play an electronic, handheld version of the game. Now, if you have a Facebook, you can add the ‘Scrabulous' application, and play the game while you wait for Honesty Box messages, or RSVPs to an event.
One would think, that the "Scrabble" empire would be overjoyed at the popularity of the foundation of their company, correct? However, Hasbro and Mattel aren't too pleased that a pair of twenty-something Calcutta, India-based brothers, Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla has created a...