Sowpods Scrabble Tips

There is a new official Scrabble application available in Facebook at http://apps.facebook.com/livescrabble . This is obviously there to replace Scrabulous, which currently looks like it will lose its court case. The new application is very well-featured, with the possibility of playing live timed games, word check, letters remaining. Unfortunately at present it is only available outside the US and Canada because of copyright issues. There are still one or two glitches as it is in Beta, but it is still fun to play. In the game above I am just about to put down my bingo!

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?

Yesterday I played this game online and managed to get four bingos: BLINDERS, CLANGER, NEAREST and STATING. They weren't exactly clever words but its the first time I managed four in one game. It was a challenge match, so there happened to be three "phonies" - one played by me and two by my opponent. If you can spot them, you could write the answer in the comments section. Click on the board to see a larger image.

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.

According to Scrabulous ETAERIO is the most likely seven-letter word to get in Scrabble. It refers to an aggregate fruit, like a raspberry - which is actually lots of little fruits joined at their bases. Another likely word is TAENIAE - the plural of TAENIA which was an ancient Greek hairband. Some other high-probability bingos containing five vowels, in order of likelihood, include: AEOLIAN - relating to the wind (the image is of an aeolian harp - a harp played by the wind) OLEARIA - daisy bush AIERIES - eyries or eagles' nests DOULEIA - veneration of saints in RC Church AEONIAN - everlasting AENEOUS - brass coloured or greenish-gold AREOLAE - coloured rings around human nipples AUREOLE - halo ALIENEE - person to whom a transfer of property is made EUGENIA - plant of the clove family AEROBIA - organisms that require oxygen