Antiquer Learning

In the midst of doing tedious work like our personal tax return (tedium is non-existent when doing our clients' returns, of course), I take a break by picking up the iPad and poking at one of the many game apps on that device. One of my recent favorites is the pay version ($9.99) of Scrabble.

I played the Scrabble board game until high school--and I thought I was fairly competent--until I played it on the iPad. Because the game processes quickly---word look-ups and computerized-opponents' moves occur instantaneously---one shortly learns all the permitted two-letter words.

In real life I never encountered a word that crossed two double-word squares (tile multiplier equals four). On the iPad I did even better: a couple of weeks ago I scored a times-nine word that covered two triple-word squares. In addition using all seven tiles in the rack merited the 50-point bonus. The 194-point total (16 x 9 + 50) was the highest I'd ever seen.

Sometimes antiques can learn new tricks.