Description

This is one of many competing crossword card games of the late 1930s. Fairchild had two versions: Lingo used bridge-size cards, and Patch Word had small cards to more easily fit on the table. The deck has 54 cards consisting of 2 jokers and 52 letter cards.

The rules for the Cross Word game: Deal 11 each for 2-3 players, 9 for 4-5, 7 for 6 or more. Each player lays down a word in their turn, using no more than 4 cards, and adding to the growing crossword arrangement. If they cannot play a word, they discard 1 and draw 1 from the draw or discard pile. The hand ends when a player goes out of cards, and players add the values of their cards in hand to their total; commoner cards have higher values. When a player reaches 100 total points, the low score wins.

The Lingo version had rules for 3 other games:

Lingo-Anagram: For 2-4 players. Deal 10 each. In a turn, a player either lays down a word of 3+ letters, or adds letters to an existing word to make new words, or does neither; the turn ends by discarding 1 and drawing 1 card. Adding simple endings (-S, -ES, -ED) is prohibited. The hand ends and the game scored as in the cross word game.

Scrambled-Lingo: Have all agree on a length of word to make. Spread all the cards on the table, and players draw that number of cards for a particular word. Then they scramble its order and pass it to the left. Players announce when they have unscrambled the word and lay it down. The order of correct unscrambling is the order of winning.

Lingo-Solitaire: Take the cards that make your full name, or a short phrase. See how many ways you can rearrange all the letters to make a phrase that makes sense.