Gaaa! No G at the Scrabble Table

G is for gi-normous, which is how big the kerfuffle was when the letter G went missing during the World Scrabble Championships recently.

It was a struggle to get the competitors to calm down after the incident, especially since after a search on and under the playing table didn't reveal the missing tile, a referee asked the players to empty their pockets! 

Scrabble is usually such a serene game, filled with periods of contemplation and reflection, permutation and calculation. Arguments tend to center on whether collections of letters are actually words and not just some sort of Dr. Seuss concoction. But when one or both players are accused of going so far beyond the bounds of decency, things can get quite heated. 

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed. No punches were thrown, no fisticuffs were threatened, not a drop of blood was spilled.

The incident definitely had an international flavor. One of the players in question was from the United Kingdom; the other player in question was from Thailand. The championships are being played in Poland — Warsaw, to be precise. Surely, no one wanted an international incident.

A larger fracas was avoided when the referee placed another G on the board.