Cheesed Off

Mike Currie played an excellent bingo against me last week. His first rack was AHLLMOU and my first turn in the game was PINT. That vowel was just the letter Mike needed to play HALLOUMI - a type of cheese. I gave him an extra 5 points for the challenge because I only knew it spelled with a single L. Both spellings are good. Another cheese with two spellings is FETA which can also be spelled FETTA. Which cheeses are allowed seems to be random. Don’t try playing EDAM, STILTON or even CAMEMBERT as they will get you a big red cross. You can however get a green tick for COLBY or CHEDDAR. I can’t give you an exhaustive list of which cheeses are and are not allowed, but one that I learned a while back and have not been able to play yet is an Italian cheese called FRIULANO. You occasionally see ROQUE (a type of croquet) on the board. It would be fun to extend that to ROQUEFORT, another cheese which is allowed

A Grade Challenge 

Here are some 8 letter words which all use the letters in CHEESE. No vowels for you today except for the letter E.

C     H     E     E     S     E     D     W

C     H     E     E     S     E     E     L

C     H     E     E     S     E     L     L 

C     H     E     E     S     E     F     L

C     H     E     E     S     E     E     G

B & C Grade Study List

Here are some 5 letter words to learn that start with the letters CH and including at least one E:

CHACE – To chase

CHAPE – The point of metal at the bottom of a scabbard

CHEKA – The Russian secret police

CHELA – A pincer-like claw

CHELP – To speak out of turn

CHERT – A form of silica

CHETH – the 8th letter of the Hebrew alphabet

CHEVY – To chase about

CHIEL – A Scottish term for a lad

CHODE – To scold

CHYLE – A milky fluid in the small intestine

CHYME – Semi digested food leaving the stomach

Answers to A Grade Challenge

ESCHEWED – Avoided

LEECHEES – Alternative spelling of the fruit LYCHEES

ECHELLES – Arrangement of ribbons as a ladder

FLEECHES – Flatters

GEECHEES – American slang for a rural Southern negro

There is a dictionary we DO NOT use which supposedly has removed all the words people might find offensive. JEW, LESBO, GOLLIWOG and NEGROIDS were all deleted for some countries when they adopted that dictionary. Even CRIP is not allowed because it might be offensive to crippled people. It is therefore surprising to notice that GEECHEE is allowed in that dictionary. Maybe the thought police will delete that one in their next update.

Happy Scrabbling

Patrick