ACROSS THE BOARD
THE TIMELESS APPEAL OF SCRABBLE ON NATIONAL SCRABBLE DAY & EVERY DAY
It's National Scrabble Day. Do you like playing Scrabble? I sure do. My entire family does—and trust me, it can get very competitive. But beyond the fun and rivalry, Scrabble is actually a great way to sharpen language and thinking skills. It pushes you to expand your vocabulary, recognize word patterns, and think strategically with limited resources. Every game is like a mini workout for the brain—perfect for those of us with "aging" brains!
HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT SCRABBLE?
13 FUN FACTS ABOUT SCRABBLE:
- More than 165 million Scrabble sets have been sold in 121 countries since its creation in 1931.
- 1.5 million Scrabble games are sold each year.
-
Over a third of American households own a Scrabble game.
- Scrabble has been translated into 30+ languages. Scrabble is also used all over the world as a means of teaching English.
- English Scrabble has 100 tiles. The most amount of tiles are in Italian and Portuguese Scrabble, which both have 120 tiles.
- Nigeria is considered the most Scrabble-obsessed country and the Scrabble capital of the world where top players get paid to play!
- The highest scoring word in Scrabble is OXYPHENBUTAZONE, worth 1,784 points.
- There's also a Braille version of Scrabble.
- Each hour of the day, some 30 Scrabble games are started.
- Well-known people who love Scrabble include: Madonna, Martha Stewart, Barack Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Keanu Reeves, the “Junk Bond King” Michael Milken (who hosted a Scrabble tournament in prison), Queen Elizabeth II, John Travolta, Mel Gibson, Joan Collins, Tom Cruise.
- If all the Scrabble tiles ever produced were lined up, they would stretch for more than 50,000 miles!
- Scrabble is ranked as the second-best board game in U.S. history, second only to Monopoly.
- In 1994, controversy hit when Hasbro removed nearly 200 “offensive” words from its dictionary. They later published two versions—a clean one for schools and a full version (yes, with the dirty words) for tournaments.
WHICH U.S. STATE CHEATS THE MOST AT SCRABBLE? FIND OUT HERE
Happy National Scrabble Day! 🎉 Whether you're a word wizard, a tile tactician, or just in it for the family fun, today’s the perfect day to break out the board and let the letters fly. May your words be long, your points be high, and may your Q's always find their U's!
Comments(12)