1997年高考英语全国卷 - 阅读理解B

In the 1930s, a lot of people in the USA were out of work. Among these people was a man named Alfred Butts. He always had an interest in word games and so, to fill his time, he planned a game which he called “Lexico”. However, he was not completely satisfied with the game, so he made a number of changes to it and, in time, changed its name from “Lexico” to “Alph” and then to “Criss Cross. He wanted to make some money from his new game but he didn’t have any real commercial success.
20世纪30年代，美国有很多人失业，其中有一个叫阿尔弗雷德·巴特斯的人。他总是对文字游戏感兴趣，因此，为了填补时间，他设计了一款游戏，称之为“Lexico”。然而，他对这款游戏并不是非常满意，所以他及时做了一些改变，名字也从“Lexico”变为“Alph”，再到“Criss Cross”。他想从他的新游戏中挣到一些钱，但他在商业上没有取得任何真正的成功。

In 1939, Butts happened to meet a man called Jim Brunot who showed an interest in the new game. The two men worked together on developing the game and in 1948 it was offered for sale in the United States under its new name “Scrabble”.
1939年，巴特斯碰巧遇到了一个名叫吉姆·布鲁诺的人，他对这款新游戏很感兴趣。两个人于是共同开发这款游戏，1948年以新名称“Scrabble”在美国发售。

At first, it didn’t sell very well. In the first year it sold just 2,250 sets and by 1951 it had only reached 8,500 sets a year. Then, in 1952 the manager of Macy’s department store in New York, Jack Strauss, happened to play “Scrabble” while he was on holiday. He thought it was a wonderful game and, when he went back to work after his holiday, he insisted that Macy’s should stock the game and make an effort to call the public’s attention to it.
起初，销售不太好。第一年仅售出2250台，到1951年时，一年也只有8500台。1952年，纽约梅西百货公司的经理杰克·施特劳斯，在度假时碰巧玩了“Scrabble”。他认为这是一款精彩的游戏，当他假期过后回去工作时，他坚持认为梅西百货公司应该进这款游戏，并且要努力引起公众的注意。

As a result, “Scrabble” became a big success in the United States and it soon spread to Australia and then to other English-speaking countries.
终于，“Scrabble”在美国大获成功，并很快传到澳大利亚，然后进入其他英语国家。