Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left to right in rows or downward in columns and are included in a standard dictionary or lexicon.
Word games are spoken, board, card or video games often designed to test ability with language or to explore its properties.
Countdown is a British game show involving word and mathematical tasks that began airing in November 1982. It is broadcast on Channel 4 and is currently presented by Colin Murray, assisted by Rachel Riley with lexicographer Susie Dent. It was the first programme to be broadcast on Channel 4 and 90 series have been broadcast since its debut on 2 November 1982. With over 8,000 episodes, Countdown is one of Britain's longest-running game shows; the original French version, Des chiffres et des lettres, has been running on French television continuously since 1965. Countdown was produced by Yorkshire Television and was recorded at The Leeds Studios for 27 years, before moving to the Manchester-based Granada Studios in 2009. Following the development of MediaCityUK, Countdown moved again in 2013 to the new purpose-built studios at Dock10 in Greater Manchester.
Gadsby is a 1939 novel by Ernest Vincent Wright, written without words that contain the letter E, the most common letter in English. A work that deliberately avoids certain letters is known as a lipogram. The plot revolves around the dying fictional city of Branton Hills, which is revitalized as a result of the efforts of protagonist John Gadsby and a youth organizer.
Gyles Daubeney Brandreth is a British broadcaster, writer and former politician. He has worked as a television presenter, theatre producer, journalist, author and publisher.
Brent Douglas Galloway was an American linguist noted for his work with endangered Amerindian languages, specializing in several of the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. He completed his degrees through a doctorate in linguistics in 1977 at the University of California, Berkeley, undertaking extensive fieldwork in that period.
Mark Nyman is an English professional Scrabble player originally from London, England and now a resident in Cheshire. At the end of 2002, he was rated 205 and was top-rated in the ABSP ratings. As at 7 September 2015 he is rated 200. His 27 consecutive tournament game wins is an ABSP record. He is most widely known as the first British player to win the World Scrabble Championship, which he accomplished in 1993. He married in 2004 and has two children, Max and Kizzy.
The Association of British Scrabble Players oversees competitive Scrabble in the UK. It was formed in 1987 by agreement with J W Spear & Sons, the game's trademark owner, who were subsequently bought out by Mattel in 1993. It currently has around 600 members.
Stewart Holden is a competitive Scrabble player from the United Kingdom. Holden is originally from Oxford but has resided near Belfast, Northern Ireland since 2008. He represented England at the World Scrabble Championship 2003, where he finished in 62nd place, and represented Northern Ireland at the World Scrabble Championship 2011 where he finished in 28th place and achieved the highest game score of the tournament (694pts).
Allan Simmons is a British scrabble expert who was one of the founder members of the Association of British Scrabble Players and succeeded Peter Finley as its chairman. He was the first chairman of the World English-language Scrabble Players Association. He was also the 2008 UK National Scrabble Champion.
Dmitri Alfred Borgmann was a German-American author best known for his work in recreational linguistics.
The UK National Scrabble Championship (NSC) is a British national scrabble tournament, held annually since its inception in 1971. While it was formerly organised by Mattel, the copyright owner of Scrabble in the UK, since 2014 it has been organised by Association of British Scrabble Players (ABSP). It is one of five major scrabble tournaments in the UK. The other four comprise the UK Open, the British Isles Elimination Scrabble Tournament (BEST), the British Matchplay Scrabble Championship (BMSC) and the UK Masters. The current UK champion is Paul Allan.
Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics is a quarterly magazine on recreational linguistics, logology and word play. It was established by Dmitri Borgmann in 1968 at the behest of Martin Gardner. Howard Bergerson took over as editor-in-chief for 1969, but stepped down when Greenwood Periodicals dropped the publication. A. Ross Eckler Jr., a statistician at Bell Labs, became editor until 2006, when he was succeeded by Jeremiah Farrell.
The World English-Language Scrabble Players' Association (WESPA) is the overarching global body for English-language national Scrabble associations and similar entities.
Andrew Fisher is an international Scrabble player who represented England in international competition but now lives in and represents Australia having emigrated in 2002. He was the World Scrabble Championship 2011 runner-up, the UK National Scrabble Champion in 1996 and the Australian National Scrabble Champion in 2006, 2009 and 2012. He co-wrote a book called How to Win at Scrabble with David Webb, and was the champion of series one of the SBS Television game show Letters and Numbers. He is a chartered accountant by profession.
Language on Vacation: An Olio of Orthographical Oddities is a 1965 book written by Dmitri Borgmann.
Beyond Language: Adventures in Word and Thought is a 1967 book written by Dmitri Borgmann.
Brett Smitheram is a British Scrabble Grand Master and one of the most successful players in the history of the game. Smitheram was 2022 UK National Scrabble Champion, defeating a high-calibre field in June that year. He won the 2016 World Scrabble Championship, and has been ranked in the World top 5, and as a UK Scrabble Grand Master for nearly 20 years. Originally from Camborne, Cornwall, he lives in London and works as Chief of Staff for high-growth tech startups.
The MSI World Scrabble Championship 2016 was a Scrabble tournament organised by Mattel and Mindsports International (MSI) to determine the world champion in English Scrabble. It was held from 31 August to 4 September 2016 in Lille, France.
Craig Beevers is an English professional Scrabble player and former World Scrabble Champion.
