第15课（256字2分钟）

Passage Fifteen

（K9 level）

1. In the 1930s, many people in the United States were struggling with unemployment.

2. Among them was a man named Alfred Butts, who had a long-standing passion for word games. To pass the time, he designed a game that he called ‘Lexico’.

3. However, Butts wasn’t fully satisfied with his game and made several changes over time, eventually renaming it first to ‘Alph’, and then to ‘Criss Cross’.

4. He hoped to make money from his new game, but despite his efforts, he didn’t achieve much commercial success.

5. In 1939, Butts met a man named Jim Brunot, who showed an interest in his game.

6. The two worked together to improve the game, and in 1948, they released it for sale in the United States under its new name—'Scrabble'.

7. At first, sales were slow. In the first year, only 2,250 sets were sold, and by 1951, the annual sales had only reached 8,500 sets.

8. Then, in 1952, Jack Strauss, the manager of Macy’s department store in New York, happened to play ‘Scrabble’ while on vacation.

9. He thought it was a fantastic game, and when he returned to work, he insisted that Macy's should start selling it and promote it to the public.

10. As a result, ‘Scrabble’ became a huge hit in the United States and quickly spread to Australia and other English-speaking countries.

生词表（New Words）

1.struggling 面临困境 unemployment 失业  

2.among 其中 passion 兴趣 design 设计  

3. satisfied 满意 eventually 最终 renaming 改名  

4. commercial success 商业成功  

5. met 遇到  

6. improve 改进 released 上市

7. sales 销售 slow 慢  

8. manager 经理 department store百货公司vacation 度假  

9. fantastic 极好的 insisted 坚持  

10. result 结果 quickly 迅速 spread 传播

1. 在20世纪30年代，美国有很多人面临失业的困境。

2. 其中有一个叫阿尔弗雷德·巴茨的人，他从小就对文字游戏很感兴趣。为了打发时间，他设计了一款游戏，最初叫做“Lexico”。

3. 然而，巴茨对这款游戏并不完全满意，于是他对游戏做了一些改动，最终将它的名字从“Lexico”改为“Alph”，再改为“Criss Cross”。

4. 他希望能通过这款新游戏赚些钱，但尽管努力过，商业上并没有取得什么成功。

5. 1939年，巴茨遇到了一个名叫吉姆·布鲁诺特的人，他对这款游戏产生了兴趣。

6. 两人开始合作改进这款游戏，1948年，他们将这款游戏以新名字“Scrabble”在美国上市。

7. 起初，这款游戏的销售情况不佳，第一年只卖出了2,250套，到1951年，年销售量仅为8,500套。

8. 然而，在1952年，纽约梅西百货的经理杰克·斯特劳斯在度假时偶然玩了“Scrabble”。

9. 他觉得这是一款非常棒的游戏，回到工作后，他坚持要求梅西百货开始销售这款游戏，并努力推广它。

10. 结果，“Scrabble”在美国成为了一款畅销游戏，并迅速传播到澳大利亚及其他英语国家。