Copyright Is a Twenty-Point Word

"Copyright" is a Twenty-Point Word

Milan Alley

Thursday, January 17, 2008

In the depths of the Great Depression (okay, 1931), architect Alfred Mosher Butts began designing Lexiko in response to the observed decrease in interest of word-based games. Butts meticulously analyzed the frequencies of letters in newspapers and other printed works to create the ideal letter distribution for his game. Played with a set of one hundred square, cardboard tiles, but no board, players would draw at random nine tiles and attempt to construct words from their choices. In 1938, Butts began work on a variation of Lexiko, which he called "Criss-Cross Words," and added a 15-by-15 square game board and crossword-style game play. Several game manufacturers rejected the game design, but Butts was able to sell copies on his own. Unfortunately Butts' profits were not enough to recover his development expenses. Therefore, in 1948 he sold the rights to