A closer look
Scrabble was invented in 1938 by an unemployed American architect named Alfred Mosher Butts who found himself completely broke during the Great Depression and decided to painstakingly calculate the exact frequency of letters on the front page of the New York Times. He used this meticulous data to determine the specific point values and distribution of wooden tiles, originally naming his thrilling creation "Lexiko" and then "Criss-Cross Words" before a business partner finally suggested a name that didn't sound completely terrible. Major toy companies relentlessly rejected the game for a decade, claiming it was incredibly boring and lacked commercial appeal, until the president of Macy's stumbled upon it while on vacation and ordered it for his massive department store. Now, this game exists solely to tear families apart when an overly competitive aunt insists that "qi" is a totally legitimate word just so she can snag a triple word score and assert her intellectual dominance over her weeping nephews
