Alexander's Challenge

Playing Mike Curry last week, I had a rack of ENNOPY with a blank. There is only one seven in those letters – HYPNONE – and I didn’t know it, but it wouldn’t have fitted on the board anyway. There were some letters to play through to make an eight. One of them was a T. There was one letter left in the bag and a good spot to score 26 by just playing the Y. Maybe that scoring spot meant I did not look as hard for a bingo as I should have done. However, the last tile was an F and there was no bingo in that. Both of the words that were missed were relatively normal. Perhaps you can start this blog by finding one of the words that can be made using ?ENNOPY plus T that is on the board.

A Grade Challenge

Alexander used his immunity card to try TANDARS which turned out to be a phony when I challenged it. He missed TARANDS and ASTRAND, but curiously he was close to the unusual TANADAR which can also be spelled THANADAR. Afterwards, he said he knew it was probably wrong because he should know words that are almost the same as his name. I hadn’t thought about words that could be made from my own name, but since Alexander brought up the subject, I have used his name for this blog:

You have GANDAR plus a blank.

There are 9 different 7 letter words. How many can you find?

B and C Grade Study List

The most common scoring play with an X is a 2 letter word but, sometimes you can get a great score for a longer word, particularly if the X falls on a premium square and the word is long enough to reach a Double or Triple Word Square

There are 17 words of 6 letters that contain the letters ALEX. You will already know some of them, but I suspect there will also be some that will be new to you.

The first 2 don’t apply to Alex! Is he ALEX... AND... ER ... the great???

ALEXIA – Loss of the power to read

ALEXIC – Word blind

ALEXIN – Substance in blood that protects against disease

AXLIKE – Like an axe

CALXES – Mineral residues

EXALTS – Places in a high position

EXHALE – To breathe out

FLAXEN – Pale yellow

FLAXES – Plural of the flax plant

LAXEST – Most careless

LEXICA – Dictionaries

LUXATE – To put out of joint

PLEXAL – Pertaining to a plexus (network)

POLEAX – To strike with an axlike weapon

SEXUAL – Pertaining to sex

WRAXLE – to wrestle

XENIAL – Pertaining to hospitality towards guests

A couple of front hooks to watch out for – (W)axlike and (A)sexual

Answers to A Grade Challenge

GRADDAN – To parch in the husk

GRANDAD – Grandfather

GARLAND – Wreath of flowers

GRANDAM – Grandmother

GRANDMA – Grandmother

GRANDPA – Grandfather

ARGANDS – Gas lamps named after the inventor

GARDANT – Guardian

YARDANG – Ridge formed by wind erosion

The answers to my question in the preamble were NONEMPTY and TWOPENNY. I had 2 triple-triples on Monday. I don’t think I have done that before. Instead of being happy about the triple-triples I was gutted that I didn’t find either of those two bingos. My first draft of this blog said that 'Scrabble is a harsh mistress'. Julie proofreads my first draft and she said: "No. That is just you"!