RIP Scrabulous

"Caught in the act, sinfully Scrabbling. Quick, eat those words."

I'm of the "tell it like it is and avoid puns at all costs" school of headline writers. Headlines should tell you what the story is about, not attempt to be clever and make you laugh. And bad puns -- read: all puns -- make me groan. When the reporters at my office had a pun-off, I wanted to cry.

But there are few events when headlines might almost warrant some fun. The death of Scrabulous, though tragic, could be one of those events. Or at least headline writers took liberties with it, like it or not.

I collected some of the heds below (though most are from blogs, not the "mainstream media," which will probably get around to doing a good job covering Facebook in a few years). You can decide if the -- wait for it -- word play [groan] was warranted.

A Boost for Office Productivity

'Expunged' worth 19 points; also Scrabble imitator's fate

Scrabulous Is Dead, Hasbro's Version Brain-Dead

Scrabulous Apocalypse

Scrabulous No Longer a Stratego Risk to Hasbro Monopoly

Scrabulous Spells S-U-E-D for Indian Developers

Scrabble owner sues Facebook play-a-like

Game Over: Scrabulous Shut Down on Facebook