101 Ways to Win at Scrabble: Top tips for Scrabble success - Barry Grossman

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attracting attention

      SHH requesting silence

      TSK expressing annoyance

      TWP Welsh word meaning stupid

      The all-consonant words exclude those containing Y, which acts as a vowel in words like DRY, and one other rather ridiculous word which we will come to later. You shouldn’t worry about it because, believe me, you will never play it.

      Using a three-letter word can be a great way to use the high-scoring tiles J, Q, X and Z, especially by getting the power tile on a double- or triple-letter square. Here are some that might help you:

      J first: JUD a block of coal

      J second: GJU that Shetland violin again, an alternative spelling to GU.

      J third: there are three, HAJ, RAJ and TAJ, all of Indian origin.

      Q first: QAT an intoxicating drug

      Q third: SUQ an Arab market-place

      X first: XIS plural of XI, a Greek letter – the only three starting with X

      X second: OXO containing oxygen

      X third: TEX a unit of weight of yarn

      Z first: ZOL a cannabis cigarette

      Z second: AZO a term used in chemistry

      Z third: WIZ short for wizard

      There are even some three-letter words with two power tiles: JIZ (a wig), ZAX (saxophone) and ZEX (a tool for cutting slates). There are no three-letter words with Q in the middle.

      The B is not one of the most useful letters. It’s most often used in shorter words, preferably on a premium square to increase its value, and preferably to help you get rid of your other less useful letters. Good B-words for this are:

      BEZ an antler on a deer’s horn

      BIZ colloquial for business

      JAB

      JIB

      JOB

      WAB dialect form of web

      CAB

      BAC the baccalaureate, a French exam (and now being introduced in the UK)

      FAB

      FIB

      FOB

      FUB to cheat

      BAH

      BOO

      BOA

      Here are some B-eautiful words that use unusual letter combinations:

      BOOAI thoroughly lost

      BRAAI South African barbecue

      OBEAH type of witchcraft once supposedly used in the West Indies

      BRAAI and OBEAH can also be verbs, so as well as BRAAIS and OBEAHS, you can also have BRAAIED, BRAAIING, OBEAHED and OBEAHING.

      There are some U-less (but far from useless) words that contain B with Q:

      NIQAB, NIQAAB Muslim veil

      QIBLA direction of Mecca, to which Muslims turn when praying

      The most likely way of using B in a bonus word is probably something beginning with BE- or BI-. The -ABLE suffix is also worth remembering (NOTABLE, OPENABLE) and quite a few with an optional E in the middle: LIV(E)ABLE, LOV(E)-ABLE, NAM(E)ABLE, MAK(E)ABLE, TAK(E)ABLE.

      If you are holding on to the common AEIOU and LNRST letters to look for bonus words, you could use a B to make:

      ATEBRIN an anti-malarial drug

      BANTIES bantams

      BASINET mediaeval helmet

      BESAINT to make into a saint

      BESTAIN

      BAITERS people who use bait

      BARITES plural of barite, a mineral

      REBAITS

      TERBIAS plural of terbia, a white powder

      BANISTER

      SEABLITE plant of the goosefoot family

      INSTABLE

      BARONIES lands owned by a baron

      SEAROBIN an American fish

      With well over 5,000 to choose from, getting a grip on the four-letter words is quite a job. Once again, you can make your life easier by concentrating on the most useful ones; they are the words with excess vowels or excess consonants, words that use J, Q, X and Z, and words that help you get rid of awkward letter combinations.

      The most memorable of the four-letter words (though conversely, one you can easily misspell) is EUOI. It is one of various ways to spell “an expression of Bacchic frenzy”. (None of the other ways of spelling it is an all-vowel word.) As Bacchus was the Roman god of wine, what we are basically saying here is it’s what Romans shouted when they were drunk.

      Knowing this meaning, you could form a little phrase to remember the tricky spelling. Try:

      Excessive Units Of Intoxication

      Not only do you remember how to spell the word, you now have an idea what to do when you’re finished playing Scrabble.

      But there’s, perhaps sadly, more to life than Bacchic frenzy. There are quite a few fours with three vowels – in fact, every consonant except F and Y is part of at least one three-vowel four. Here is one for every possible combination of three different vowels:

      AEI gives IDEA

      AEO gives ODEA

      AEU gives BEAU

      AIO gives IOTA

      AIU gives AITU

      AOU gives AUTO

      EIO gives ONIE

      EIU gives LIEU

      EOU gives ROUE

      IOU – none – except that cry of Bacchic frenzy EUOI

      Again, you can see there are a few familiar ones mixed in with some exotica. ODEA, for instance, were Greek or Roman buildings for entertainment, the plural of odeum or the more familiar odeon. An AITU is a half-human, half-divine being, like some of the incredibly good players I try to beat on the tournament Scrabble circuit. A ROUE is a man given to immoral living (some of them on the circuit too), while, more prosaically, ONIE is a Scots version of any.

      There are a few four-letter words with no vowels, not even a Y:

      BRRR, GRRL, PFFT, PSST

      You know three of those, even if you have never thought of them as words in a Scrabble context – BRRR is what you say when you’re cold, PSST is for surreptitiously attracting someone’s attention, and PFFT is one of those words

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