E-Scrabble - The Game, The Rules, The Philosophy

I just got an email from Curtis that was an E-Scrabble game. What an interesting idea! It begins:

Started By: {email addr.}
Subject: E-Scrabble
Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2007 21:29:27 +0000

E-Scrabble

Change one letter of the last word posted (by me, AT THE BOTTOM) and see who gets stuck and can't continue!

Rules:
1. You cannot add letters.
2. No foreign words.
3. Change only one letter
4. Send it back to the person that sent it to you, plus 10 new people.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

STARTING WORD -lime
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tracy - time
Michelle - tame
...

and ends with:

...
Carol - cold
Dave-cola
Curtis - coda

Don't forget: Send it back to the person that sent it to you, plus 10 new people and delete all forwarding addresses at the top of this email before sending.

I added COMA and immediately became curious about where this has been and what the final result might be. I suggested to Curtis that he should start a blog and a new game and to amplify the rules. The more I thought about it, the more fun it sounded! So here we go....

The Rules:

Change one letter of the last word posted at the bottom of the list and see who gets stuck and can't continue!

1. Change only one letter
2. You cannot add or delete letters
3. Word must appear in the SOWPODS word list
4. No repeats of words
   
5. Send it back to the person that sent it to you plus whomever else you care to send it to, preferably as a new email msg and not a Reply or Forward
6. Last person who cannot make a new word, please send to this blog and I will post it
7. This is a game! Keep it fun!!

The Philosophy

There's quite a bit of philosophy behind this chain game. First, Scrabble is only appreciated by people who enjoy words and word games. This pretty much eliminates morons and most Hollyweirdo celebrities. You just don't see George Clooney or Paris Hilton doing crossword puzzles.

People who enjoy this kind of thing tend to be somewhat intelligent if not a bloomin' genius. Plus the fact that you are online, at least email competent and you are reading this means you are at least marginally curious; a sure sign of intelligence. I realize that even a Kindergartener has an email addr. nowadays, but I don't perceive anyone playing this game would send it to a 5-year-old who couldn't appreciate it.

With people adding their location to their addition, it will be interesting to see where these emails go. I am in Southern California, but email puts us all in the same room. Hope you all took a shower today. Curtis is in Colorado. I am going to send to my friend Mark in New Zealand. Andrew in Shanghai is going to get a copy too.

Come back soon and see what happens!