The famous game Scrabble (Erudyt in Ukraine, Alphabet in Sweden) was invented in 1938 by the unemployed architect Alfred Batts. Or it would be more accurate to say that Batts invented an entire genre of puzzle games. It is now celebrated in honor of the inventor, on his birthday Erudite game day (Scrabble or Scrabble) – April 13.

Name Scrabble translated from English means “to dig into something”. The game is a board competition in making words from the given letters. 2-4 people play Erudite for an hour. Scrabble can improve language skills and observation.

Analyzing the games, Batts found that they fell into three categories:

• number games like bingo;
• games with movement (checkers and chess);
• text games (anagrams and crosswords).

Alfred wanted to invent a game where knowledge and chance would have equal weight, so he used the principle of a crossword and a random selection of letters at the beginning of the game.

In working on the game, the inventor analyzed articles in the newspaper “New York Times” to determine the frequency of each letter and deduce their “value”. Many other word games were then created based on this language analysis.

Butts created the Lexico game, but it wasn’t yet the Erudite we know. Lexico was without a border: just a set of cardboard cards. The game did not interest potential publishers at all. Big companies turned Batts down one after another.

Then Batts added a 225 square playing field to his design and changed the principle of the game. Now the words had to cross each other, as in a crossword puzzle. In 1948, entrepreneur and game enthusiast James Bruno bought the rights to produce the game from the author in exchange for royalties on the sale of each copy. Bruno independently published the game in an abandoned school near Connecticut. The process was tedious and only 12 game sets were produced per hour.

The first four years became a struggle for existence. By 1949, the company had produced 2,400 sets and lost $450. As it often happens, the game waited a long time for its popularity, but then the success was impressive. Already by 1952, Bruno could not cope with the growing demand for the game and sold the rights to it to a large publisher, who once did not believe in the success of the development and refused to cooperate with Batts.

• Erudite-Scrabble has been one of the most popular games in the world for many years. It is available in 29 different languages ​​and more than 150 million games have been sold in 121 countries around the world.

Have you been playing this great game for a long time? It is worth repeating!