Previously, I published a blog post featuring playable two-letter words beginning with a, as well as a blog post featuring playable two-letter words beginning with b, d, and e. Today’ s blog post features playable two-letter words beginning with f, g, h, i, j, k, and l. Learning these two-letter words, as well as the other two-letter words in the alphabet, will enable you to see more options for play and may increase the number of points you earn in a single turn.
- fa: a tone on the diatonic scale
- fe: a Hebrew letter
- gi: a white garment worn in martial arts
- go: a Japanese board game
- ha: used to express surprise
- he: a pronoun signifying a male
- hi: an expression of greeting
- hm: used to express consideration
- ho: used to express surprise
- id: the least censored part of the three-part psyche
- if: a possibility
- in: to harvest (a verb, takes -s, -ed, -ing)
- is: the third-person singular present form of “to be”
- it: a neuter pronoun
- jo: a sweetheart
- ka: the spiritual self in ancient Egyptian spirituality
- ki: the vital life force in Chinese spirituality (also qi)
- la: a tone of the diatonic scale
- li: a Chinese unit of distance
- lo: an expression of surprise
Notes on Last Friday’s Games
Review the games and commentaries below, and make note of the dos and don’ts.
Non-English Words and Proper Nouns
The game featured above includes a non-playable Spanish word, que, and a non-playable proper noun, the name Reid. As a rule, non-English words are not playable in English Scrabble unless they are commonly used in the English language, such as foods with origins in other countries. Do not assume that a non-English word is playable because other words that appear to be non-English are playable. For example, si is playable but not as the Spanish affirmative, which has an accent mark. Si has another meaning in English, which will be included in a later two-letter Scrabble list.
If you aren’t sure whether a proper noun, such as Reid, is also a common noun, you and your teammate will have to determine whether you are willing to take a chance on it.
S, as in Save and Strategy
In the first four plays of the game featured above, the teams played three of the four s‘s. S is a valuable letter to save for strategic use, rather than waste on low-point words, such as shed (eight) and shop (eleven). Only the play of the third s was judicious because it earned its players thirty-three points.
Although the two blanks have a point value of zero, they are the most valuable letters in the game. Second to the blanks in value are the four s‘s, worth one point each. The high value of blanks and s’s, despite their low-point value, lies in their versatility.
Less is More
The game pictured above illustrates the benefits of playing two-letter words to increase the number of points earned in a single play. In ten turns, the two teams played a total of eight two-letter words:
- ae (horizontal)
- ae (vertical)
- eh
- er
- lo
- ox
- ti
Ae, eh, and er are among the words defined in previous posts with two-letter word lists. Lo appears in today’s list, and ox and ti will be included in later lists.
Notably, the two teams that played the game pictured above, with a total of eight two-letter words played in ten turns, achieved higher scores than the other eight teams. Kudos to Zach Dick, Ewan Paterson, and Dylan Virga.
Next Up
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, or the Merriam-Webster Scrabble Word Finder page, and review the blog posts devoted to Scrabble.
Coming Soon
On Monday, we will examine sample literacy narratives. Before class, read the model narrative, “A Bridge to Words,” which is posted in Blackboard. You do not need to print a copy. I will distribute copies in class, along with copies of two student literacy narratives written in previous semesters.
Jane Lucas 