That X is Still Heavy on Points

There is a new class at Princeton called Constrained Writing in which the students draft assignments with all sorts of writing constraints. For example they might have to write a paragraph in which all the words are alphabetical or one which reads the same upside down or right side up. Or compose a poem of anagrams. You get the drift.

One very clever student invented his own constraint which was to use every tile in the Scrabble set to compose a sentence that was coherent. The result even used the two blank tiles.

I was reminded of the Scrabble constraint when I read a recent blurb in Time magazine about the appearance of new Scrabble rules in the United Kingdom. Mattel, which manufactures the U. K. edition of the game, has introduced a version called Scrabble Trickster that permits all sorts of variations like the use of proper nouns and backward-spelled words. As you can imagine the classic aficionados of the game are a bit miffed. Such audacity!

Not to worry. The United States rights to the game are owned by Hasbro, not Mattel, so there is little chance that Americans will be seeing the funkier version of the game. Unless of course it becomes a collectors item in its own right.

I wonder if you get extra points for spelling a word backwards. . .