It's clear that the way to score Boggle contests is to see who wins the most rounds rather than who gets the most points. The traditional point-totalling method overemphasizes the ability to pile up stacks of words in wide-open grids and marginalizes the ability to winkle weird words out of grids with lots of consonants clumped together, but it's clearly the latter that requires the most skill. It's like Rawls's criticism of utilitarianism--the traditional scoring method does not respect the distinction between rounds.
[Sore loser? Moi?]
Posted by Matt Weiner at March 18, 2004 03:02 PM