Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1891-01-01
PLAYED WITH LETTERS.
An Entertaining Game for the Youn
En1 of

An Entertaining Game for the Young
Folks at Home.
A new game, which affords good
deal of amusement and also lmparts
considerable instruction to the young
in the formation of words, is played in
the following manner, with the letters
Of the alphabet. Half dozen sets of
all the letters of the alphabet are pro-
vided, each letter on small piece OF
pasteboard or wood. One player then
gathers all the letters before him on
the table and the other players sit
around the table, as at cards The
player who has all the letters then
turns them face downward and pro-
ceeds to deal them out one by one, to
the others, beginning with the player
sitting at his right hand and continuing
around the table in order.
AS he deals letter out he turns it
face up, so that all may see that it is
''n,' for instance. The next player gets
an 80" suppose, and he quickly sees
that his letter, joined to the IN" received
by the first player, will form the word
no" He announces the fact and claims
the ''n." This is surrendered to him and
he forms the word mo- on the table in
front of him and must leave it there un-
disturbed until some other player gets a
letter, which added to the word mo, y
will form some other word.
Suppose, for instance, that the third
letter dealt out is ''w." The owner
of the ''w' may claim the word mo-
and adding his ''w' to make it ''now."
The fourth letter turned up may be a
Ssv nd Of I,,-pa a
sigh of relief as he thinks he will hold
on to his word, for a little while
anyway, for the now and the ''y''
don't seem to make any thing. Perhaps
several letters follow, out of which no
combination can be made which will
spell correct word until some one gets
an IS" This letter, in connection with
''now," will spell ''snow," but if the
lucky owner of the So is sharp enough
he will also claim the ''y'' from his other
rival and spell Snowy"
The examples given here are sample
words, as they show more clearly to
young minds how the game may be
played easily, but when number of
letters have been dealt out the most
skillful spoilers may find scope for their
abilities, and many are the combina-
tons which will escape the notice of
all who are gathered around the table,
for time, until some one discovers
them. as if by accident, and then the
wonder will be that they were not seen
before.
One player may not claim from an
other any letter or letters which have
been worked up into a word without
taking that whole word and using it all,
though it's letters may be entirely trans
posed to make different word. The
range of words may wander over half a
dozen languages if the players so agree,
and then the game becomes difficult
enough for Boston blue-stoclzing or a
college professor.
The winner of the game is the player
who has the most complete words spread
out on the table in front of him when
the dealer has turned up the last letter
he has in his pile. Long words count
no more than short words, and if two
players ''tie," they set to work breaking
up their long words into short ones, and
this disposes of the tie nine times out OF
ten. For a large number of players q
large number of letters is, of course, re
quired, but two people will often play
the game half an hour before exhaust
ing half-dozen complete alphabets.