Stagier

One combination of letters which seems to come up regularly for me is AEGIRST.  The only word I can usually think of is "Stagier".  After a bit more cogitation I thought of "GAITERS", but that was it. So I decided to look up the combo in "Scrabble Words" and came up with the following list:

AGISTER, AIGRETS, GAITERS, SEAGIRT, STAGIER, STRIGAE, TIRAGES, TRIAGES

Take a look at the list and then play a game of online hangman (which I created just for this purpose) to see how many you can remember. OK you are unlikely to lose a life because you know which letters are in the word, but it might help you to remember them for next time!

By the way, no I didn't know what most of them meant either.  But I do now :)

And here is a word-search containing all 8.  It looks hard - think I better print it out...



M  R  J  Q  X  T  E  D  S  C  S
Z  R  A  B  T  R  A  W  X  K  E
T  E  Z  P  R  I  G  Q  P  G  G
R  I  X  A  I  A  I  O  A  T  A
V  G  G  I  G  G  R  E  G  L  R
F  A  S  G  A  E  T  J  I  W  I
N  T  I  R  E  S  S  M  S  P  T
W  S  F  E  S  D  W  U  T  I  Q
S  R  E  T  I  A  G  V  E  Z  I
L  Y  S  S  B  P  J  O  R  M  J
I  O  D  U  V  W  U  V  D  L  Z

Lexicomania

Lexicomania is a site for sad people obsessed with Boggle and Scrabble. Whoopee! It has a great quiz. You need to solve each page before you can move onto the next one. I'm on page 2 out of 15. How well can you do? Thanks to Al for putting this together.

155 tricky four letter words (A-M)

Here are 155 tricky four letter words which you can test yourself on using Flash cards and other games at http://quizlet.com/_qnj3

They include words such as: MAKI (Japanese) a slice of a cold rice concoction, COWK (dial.) to retch, feel nauseated and HOHA (NZ) bored, annoyed. Enjoy.

3 letters no vowels

I've found a useful site which enables you to create your own sets of flash cards - which you can play various games with, as well as using it to learn the words. The site will remember which words you get right. I've created a set with three-letter SOWPODS Scrabble words containing only consonants.

There are 19 words to learn, plus their meanings, including such gems as myc, lym, wyn, tyg and many others.

Otarine plus one letter

Let's say you happen to pull out the most likely and fruitful handful of letters in Scrabble: AEINORT

You already have a bingo: OTARINE (like or pertaining to seals)

But if you add one letter you can also make the following acceptable words:

A aeration

B baritone, obtainer, reobtain, taborine

C actioner, anoretic, creation, reaction

D arointed, deration, ordinate, rationed

H antihero

L oriental, relation, taileron

N anointer, inornate, reanoint

P atropine

R anterior

S anoestri, arsonite, notaries, notarise, rosinate, senorita

T tentoria

Z notarize

Scrabble on the iphone

Scrabble has been implemented on the iphone - and it works really well. You can play against the computer (and choose the level of your opponent) or against a real opponent using Pass 'n Play. If they have an iphone, you can also play peer-to-peer using wi-fi.

To play, simply drag your chosen tiles onto the board, which automatically zooms in, pinch and drag to zoom in and out. Useful options include "Best Word" which will suggest the highest scoring word with the current rack. You can shake the iphone to shuffle the letters on your rack - or just tap the appropriate button.

Five letters beginning with X

Yesterday I was playing real scrabble, with actual tiles. After playing in the virtual world for so long, the tiles and the board seem BIG. Anyway I was faced with an 'X' tantalisingly hovering above the triple. Could I think of a five-letter or longer word starting with 'X'? No.

So here are the five letter ones:

XEBEC, XENIA, XENIC, XENON, XERIC, XEROX, XERUS, XOANA, XYLAN, XYLEM, XYLIC and XYLOL. Easy when you look them up. There are quite a few six-letter ones too.

By the way, Xenia is the way that pollen influences the formation of fruit as well as being the name of a harp player I know in Norwich. And Xoana are images of gods which have fallen from heaven (see above).