Scrabble: Dictionary Optional?

"Who is to decide whether Limahl, of the 1980s pop group Kajagoogoo, is sufficiently famous to merit inclusion? Is Dec, of Ant and Dec, allowable on his own?" says Jack Malvern.

We're not talking about inclusion in a dictionary, though that would simplify matters. We're contemplating potential minefields as Mattel announces new rules that would allow proper names, places and otherwise capitalised words to be used legally on the Scrabble board!

"It is enough for angry Scrabble purists to unleash a rash of four-letter scores in protest as new rules threaten to dumb down the world’s most popular board game." reports Stephen Drill in The Daily Express.

In the 1930's Alfred Butts translated his lifelong love of crossword puzzles into a board game. Mr. Butts, attempting to create a game that would use both chance and skill, combined features of anagrams and the crossword puzzle-and called his new game "Criss Cross Words."

In 1948, Mr. and Mrs. James Brunot, owners of one of the original Criss Cross Words sets, thought the game should be marketed. Brunot made a few changes to the game, including the rule about starting across the middle instead of in the top left corner, and, perhaps more significantly, changing the name to Scrabble. Source: Idea Finder

Working together in licensing, production and marketing, they lost $450 the first year. Word of mouth caused a gain in popularity and eventually it took off, to become one of the top board games in America.

Which game ranks above Scrabble as the best selling board game in US History?

More than 150 million Scrabble game sets have been sold around the world.

More than 1 in 2 homes in London have the game.

Teams of players from UK Scrabble leagues took part in a four-day tournament in Exeter over Easter. Meanwhile, diehard competitors in Peterborough played for 27 hours without sleep during a non-stop contest running from midday on Saturday until 3pm on Sunday.

“How are you going to check if the name is a real word? We have a book of all the words that can be used and we have to be able to prove that it’s in the dictionary, that it is a real word,” said Mauro Pratesi, 55, chairman of the London Scrabble League.

With the innumerable variations of personal names and wacky place names, who is to way what is permissible and what is not? How many points would I get for Waikikamukau? Now "Alfred" and "Butts" will be legal words on the Scrabble board.