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Dundy O
United States
Milwaukee
Wisconsin
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M&Ms though, when challenged, are found UNACCEPTABLE. This is according to Alfred's own rules!
Who is Alfred Butts? Here’s a clue:
Hmm...tough one, eh? Tell you what, I’ll open the box for you...
Yes, he is the gentleman who invented the boardgame Scrabble!
He was very unassuming, very gentle, and admittedly, a very bad speller. Alfred Butts was born in 1899, struggled through the Great Depression after losing his job in an architectural firm, and learned that his talents in painting and writing barely paid the bills.
He had a passion, though. It's a passion that many Geeks on this site share. Alfred wanted to create a boardgame. And in that passion, he realized his greatest gift. His methodical nature.
Alfred Butts was a meticulous man. In his dream of creating a boardgame, he studied every game that he knew. He then classified all boardgames as belonging to one of three categories. Number games, move games and word games.
When designing the game that eventually would become one of the most played games in the 20th century, he studied thousands of words. He calculated the frequency of letters, assigned values to each letter based on that frequency, and prepensely determined the number of tiles of each letter he was to place in his game.
His earliest form of Scrabble was without a game board. After this version was rejected by numerous game publishers, Alfred's meticulous nature continued to tinker with his design. He eventually created a game board made up of squares, fixed the starting square in the center of the board, assigned different bonus values to certain squares, and incentivized using the outer edges of the game board by giving them the highest values.
Alfred eventually published his design but wasn't able to gain wide distribution until a man named Jack Straus played and fell in love with Scrabble. Mr. Straus was chairman of R.H. Macy & Co. and he insisted that all Macy stores stock the game he became obsessed with while on vacation one year.
Times began to brighten for Mr. Alfred Butts after that, as they did for many millions of word lovers throughout the world. No game has sold more variations or spawned more types than Scrabble has.
According to History of Scrabble ( http://www.scrabble-assoc.com/info/history.html), one hundred million sets have been sold world-wide and about two million sold every year in North America. These amazing numbers only pertain to the base game of Scrabble. Scrabble Junior, Scrabble Dice and the multitude of other Scrabble variations add to these numbers.
Alfred Butts was an unassuming man of simple needs but he created a vibrant and still growing legacy. So, the next time you open up a Scrabble board to "get your words on," open up a bag of M&Ms and rest in the fact that the simple things in life are always the finest.

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