Men - More Useful Than Women
Yes, I know that is a controversial statement, but at scrabble it is definitely true. Consider the 7 letter words available. There are a couple of seven letter words that end in WOMAN, but UNWOMAN doesn’t really count for this list because unwomen is not a word. The only valid possibility is ADWOMAN/ADWOMEN.
If we move on to 8 letter words there are 8 possibilities for women/women words. How many of those can you think of? To put it a different way, if the opening play was WOMAN or WOMEN how many ways could you extend that back to the triple word score? The answers to this quiz are at the bottom of the page.
While you consider that we will look at the highly versatile man/men words. There are too many of these to include on one of my blogs, so I will concentrate on the 20 most probable ones in both 7 and 8 letter words:
FIREMAN/MEN
FOREMAN/MEN Supervisors
FREEMAN/MEN Men who are free
GATEMAN/MEN People in charge of a gate
GLEEMAN/MEN Itinerant minstrels or musicians
HELIMAN/MEN Helicopter pilots
HOSEMAN/MEN Firemen who direct the stream of water
IRONMAN/MEN Men of great strength and stamina
ISLEMAN/MEN Islanders
LINEMAN/MEN Installers or repairers of telephone wire
OVERMAN/MEN Foremen
RAILMAN/MEN Railway employees
REEDMAN/MEN Musicians who play a reed instrument
REELMAN/MEN Members of a surf lifesaving team who operate the reel
REPOMAN/MEN Repossession agent
SEEDMAN/MEN Dealers in seeds
SIDEMAN/MEN Members of a jazz band
TELEMAN/MEN Naval officers
TRUEMAN/MEN Honest men
WIREMAN/MEN Dealers in wire
ALDERMAN/MEN Members of a municipal legislative body
BRIDEMAN/MEN Attendants of the groom at a wedding
HORSEMAN/MEN Riders of horses
HOTELMAN/MEN Hotel managers
LIEGEMAN/MEN Feudal vassals
LODESMAN/MEN Pilots
OVERSMAN/MEN Umpires
PROSEMAN/MEN Writers of prose
RADIOMAN/MEN Radio operators or technicians
PETERMAN/MEN Thieves skilled in safe blowing
REINSMAN/MEN Skilled horse riders
RIFLEMAN/MEN Soldiers who carry a particular type of gun
ROUTEMAN/MEN People who work along a particular route
SHIREMAN/MEN Sheriffs
SHOREMAN/MEN People who live by the shore
STEELMAN/MEN Workers in the steel industry
STOREMAN/MEN Storekeepers
TALESMAN/MEN Bystanders chosen to make up the numbers on a jury
TENORMAN/MEN Players of a tenor saxophone
TIDESMAN/MEN Customs officers
That is just a sample of how useful MEN can be. The full list would include about 150 combinations of 7 letters and the same amount or even slightly more in the category of 8 letter words.
That brings us back to the 8 words in the woman/woman list. How many did you find?
AIRWOMAN/MEN Female aviators
BATWOMAN/MEN An officer’s female attendants
CONWOMAN/MEN Female confidence tricksters
LAYWOMAN/MEN Female members of the laity
MADWOMAN/MEN Crazy women
PENWOMAN/MEN Women skilled in handwriting
SEAWOMAN/MEN Women serving at sea
TOYWOMAN/MEN Women who sell toys
I would hate to be thought of as politically incorrect, so to redress the balance a little I will point out that WISEWOMAN/WISEWOMEN are acceptable words. However apparently the purveyors of our dictionaries are not prepared to consider the possibility of there being a wiseman or wisemen. If you have the first word then at least you can play MANWISE, but there is no legal word with the second combination.
Happy Scrabbling
Patrick