English department students kept their title as Scrabble champions at the annual Scrabble Battle on March 27.
Every year, the Linguistics Student Society hosts a Scrabble tournament between the linguistics and English majors. Jeff Parker, the faculty advisor for the society, said the competition has been happening for at least 10 years.
“We're both really interested in language and English," Parker said. "I think that's why it's a classic, fun, language word game.”
Emma Todd, an officer for the society, said while last week’s attendance was small, it was the typical size for the annual competition. Regardless of size, there is still a small rivalry between the schools.
“Obviously, there’s a trophy,” Todd said. “Whoever wins the trophy, it goes and sits in that department’s office until the next year to see if it changes homes or not.”
Ilse Eskelsen, an English major who competed, said this rivalry adds to her experience in her major.
“I love Bananagrams. I love glory,” Eskelsen said. “I thought it would be a fun rivalry if we could stoke it a little harder and maybe next year we'll have better attendance.”
Because of the nature of Scrabble, Parker said they play “speed Scrabble” rather than the traditional form. He compared it to a cross of Bananagrams and Scrabble.
Rather than using a board and taking turns, players went as fast as they could to use all their tiles. Once a person did this, they would say, “go," and all players had to take two more pieces. This process continued until all the tiles were out.
“It makes it fun ‘cause if we were to play just one, normal Scrabble game, you could only have a few people playing and it would take ages,” Parker said.
Eskelsen shared what her experience has been as she plays the game.
"The main thing is I'm trying to rearrange words in my head,” Eskelsen said. “I kind of go on autopilot when I'm playing … feeling that adrenaline rush like, ‘we have to beat linguistics.'”
At the end of each game, Parker said students added points based on the numbers associated with each used letter. Points were then subtracted for any unused tiles. He said while the scoring system has varied over the years, but recently they’ve been taking the average of each team’s scores.
“For a couple of years there was one student who was really good compared to everybody else,” Parker said. “It didn't seem fair that the whole competition rested on one person, so then we did averages, which works pretty well.”
Ultimately, the hope is for this annual activity to bring together a community across departments.
“A lot of people that I met here I would see around in class, but I didn't talk to them,” Todd said. “It’s a great way to make friends and acquaintances in the major."