17 Jan 2013

Overhaul of Scrabble points proposed

8:39 am on 17 January 2013

An American academic is proposing an overhaul to the Scrabble points system.

Josh Lewis from the University of California has devised a computer programme that adjusts the letters' values according to their difficulty.

He said Q is still the hardest letter to play and should remain top of the tiles, on 10 points.

Mr Lewis said many new words have been added to the scrabble dictionary such as za - slang for pizza, and qi - Chinese for life force - making traditional power tiles easier to use.

However, he is doubtful Scrabble enthusiasts will want to rock the boat by changing the scoring.