Aye Aye Aye Aye

That is a painful title! But what can be more painful than picking up a rack with 4 of the same vowel?

It almost never happens with the letter U because there are only 4 in the whole bag. For that reason we will look only at the more common possibilities

If it is the letter E there are lots of mundane words that can be used to play 3 of them such as FEELER or TEEMED

If it is the letter A there is a good chance of playing off 3 of them as there are 14 words of only 5 letters that have 3 of that vowel

This blog isn't about the letter A, but you will find it useful to know ABACA, ABAKA, ABAYA, AFARA, AGAMA, ALAAP, ALAPA, ANANA, ANATA, ARABA, ASANA, AYAYA, KAAMA and TAATA

If it is the letter O there are only 2 words of 5 letters with that vowel so try to remember OVOLO and POTOO. However there are 36 O-O-O words with 3 letters and 15 of those, like BOOHOO, even have 4.

The most inconvenient vowel to pick up four of a kind is the letter I. Remarkably there is a 5 letter word with 3 of them. However if you want to put your hand in the bag while looking at only one of them left on your rack you will probably have to play a 6 letter word. You don't often have exactly the right 3 consonants to play one of those words, but you might have have two of them and find the other one somewhere on the board

FILII - The plural of FILIUS, the latin name for a son

BIKINI - A two piece swimming costume

BIMINI - A kind of awning for a yacht

ILIACI - The plural of ILIACUS, a muscle in your thigh

IMIDIC - Of or like an IMIDE, a compound of ammonia

IRIDIC - Something that is related to the IRIS of the eye

IRITIS - An inflammation of the IRIS

MIRITI - A type of palm tree

NIGIRI - A small oval block of cold rice, wasabi and fish

TIRITI - The maori word for treaty

If you have to play IRITIS - an inflammation of the iris - then try to hook a bingo containing an M or a T in front of it later. That might bring a tear to your opponent's eye!

Happy Scrabbling

Patrick