186 – Pub Scrabble in SA

The Riverland was pumping. Tried beer by Woolshed Brewing and Big Shed Brewing Concern. Then tried to do a tasting flight at 23rd Street Distillery and it was packed!

Let us try a new segment called Coopers Bible Verse Of The Week. This one is from Proverbs 20: Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler; whoever is led astray by them is not wise.  We hope that quote has helped you see the light.

On Wednesdays and Saturdays in Adelaide, Scrabble players hunch over scrabble boards in pubs to face off against each other in a battle of wits and vocabulary. To give voice to this art or sport, we have Adam Kreutschmer and Fiona Braeden from Adelaide Pub Scrabble which is part of Scrabble SA.

Is it a sport or an art

Adam you had a win at the Australia/New Zealand Trans-Tasman Championship. Tell me, to the Kiwis have an advantage, given they use very different vowels to the ones we use?

Fiona, you’ve just competed, what was it like

How do you prepare

Must you be well read or is it in rote learning

What do you make of all these new words like lolz and tweep

Share some strategies please

Pluralising – a good thing? Do you get all the points again from the word

Can you get help with spelling, mid-game

Favourite words and most feared words

Proudest moments

The news history quiz with Nigel Dobson-Keeffe.

The Advertiser Nov 1938
5AD SPELLINGBEE BOOKED OUT
Station 5AD informs its listeners that bookings for both Tuesday and Thursdays Radio Spelling are completely booked out. Invitations are .now being issued for the following week and early application for these is advised. There is no charge for entry to the studio during the spelling bee broadcasts but it essential that an invitation be presented at the door. These Radio Spelling Bees run on American lines, are now being broadcast from the stations on “The Advertiser” network, 5AD, 5PI, 5MU each Tuesday at 8:15pm and Thursday at 9:30pm.

The Advertiser 1954
Scrabble Is Latest Game Craze
New York. — Right here in the middle of the television age, a parlor-game craze is sweeping America. All the wise men who predicted dire social results when television finally covered the nation thought such games were gone forever. But now 10 million Americans have proved them wrong. In little more than six months that huge number of fans has been recruited for a new game called Scrabble. Stories about the craze are seeping out to the out- ride world and Scrabble’s inventor is expecting that sometime soon his “brain child” will cover the whole world in just the way that Monopoly, Mah Jong and Canasta did. Scrabble is a word game and its requirements are: skill in spelling, a handy dictionary, and some competitive spirit. Also necessary are a board marked with 326 squares, 100 small wooden counters bearing the letters of the alphabet, and two, three or four players. … But as the board becomes well covered the addition of one more letter usually involves trying to form two almost impossible words. Then the old crossword puzzle standbys like gnu, adze, czar, fez, zebu, and xyme start filling up the remaining spaces. Scrabble has a high percentage of fans now in the universities of America. In New York it has been turned into a fierce gambling game.

The Register – January 1930
New craze influences clothing
The first cross-word frock appeared in Rundle Street; yesterday, indicating the final surrender of Australian womanhood to the crossword puzzle craze. The familiar black-and- white square’s, arranged in fantastic groupings, adorned the- frock, the ends of the scarf in front, and a small felt hat also, the sides of the new fashionable envelope-shaped handbag. Crossword jumpers are also appearing. Nearly every daily newspaper is prominently publishing crossword puzzles, and men and women are working out the problems on buses and trams and trains, or in their offices. The craze is defended on the ground that the mental effort involved, is rejuvenating the old country. The whole population is suddenly using its brains and acquiring knowledge in. a fascinating way. The demand for dictionaries, gazetteers, and books of synonyms is enormous.