Sowpods Scrabble Tips

Everybody knows that you are not allowed proper nouns in Scrabble (Sowpods version). However a quick trawl of the Scrabble dictionary reveals the following allowable words which are also people's names. This is only an initial list - I'm sure there are hundreds more. You might find a few surprises. Feel free to add any more that you know of in the comments. abigail, alan, ana, ann, anna, ava, bill, billy, baldric, basil, beth, bob, bunty, charity, cher, cherry, cliff, carl, colin, crystal, dean, daisy, danny, dawn, deb, derrick, dexter, dick, don, donna, doris, emma, eric, erica, eve, faith, felicity, frank, gill, grace, harry, hazel, henry, holly, iris, ivy, jack, jade, jake, james, jane, jasmine, jasper, jean, jeanette, jeff, jenny, jessie, jill, jo, joanna, joe, joey, john, johnny, joy, kitty, laura, laurel, lily, louis, madge, martin, mary, matt, maud, mavis, mick, micky, mickey, mike, nardine, nat, natty, neal, nick, nicky, olive, oscar, otto, pat, pandora, pearl, peter,...

There are some great ways of extending your vocabulary through playing other games than Scrabble. On Facebook a really useful game is Word Twist which is basically an anagramming game but fun because you get to challenge your friends. At the end you get to see which words you couldn't find in the six or seven letter anagram. On Facebook as well, its worth playing Scramble and of course Scrabulous . By the way, there is a seven-letter anagram in the game shown on the left. Know what it is?

EUOUAE

Coming from a vegetarian, that's a bit rich. But I want more pork, or to be precise morepork. Sometimes you come across a word in the dictionary that you just can't take your eyes off. The image is of a morepork owl, native to New Zealand and a protected bird of prey. You'll also be interested to know that they eat hairy huhu beetles. One day I hope to play "morepork" and "huhu" in Scrabble. They are both legal. Failing that, if I don't have eight letters, I could try "mopoke", an alternative spelling.

Hasbro, the manufacturers of Scrabble, are trying to shut down Scrabulous - the ninth most popular Facebook application. Invented by two brothers from Calcutta - Jayant, 21 and Rajat Agarwalla, 26, the application has 2.3 million active users as of today and 70 million pageviews in the past month. However Hasbro have warned Facebook of their intention to shut down Scrabulous. So perhaps we do need a Facebook Group to Save Scrabulous ! Watch this space. If the worst comes to the worst we'll just have to continue playing live at http://www.isc.ro

The perfect place to relax after a game of scrabble... These Scrabble Sofas are made by Stephen Reed for employees in the London offices of Bloomberg financial services. Users can make words and leave messages with the screen printed letter cushions.