Does It Take an S?

If your opponent puts an S on a 7 letter word that ends in –ING it is always worth considering a challenge. Just to show you how tricky that can be I am going to give you 20 words of 8 letters ending in –INGS. See if you can tell which ones are legal and which ones could be challenged off.

BARKINGS BRAKINGS DARTINGS DRONINGS LEAFINGS LEAPINGS LEERINGS MOATINGS MEOWINGS PEALINGS REARINGS RESTINGS RIOTINGS SALTINGS SAUTINGS SEARINGS SORTINGS STORINGS TEASINGS TERMINGS

TRADINGS

I will give you a hint.

10 of them are good and 10 of them are not.

Can you tell which ones are correct?

If you have trouble then join the club. We all have trouble with these

Just remember that and challenge any that you are not sure of.

Ready?

Here are the answers:

The ones that are correct are:

BRAKINGS LEERINGS

REARINGS RESTINGS RIOTINGS SALTINGS SEARINGS SORTINGS TEASINGS TRADINGS

You probably noticed some of them are anagrams of each other.

Clearly you should play TRADINGS because DARTINGS is no good and BRAKINGS because BARKINGS is no good. Also SORTINGS because STORINGS is no good. That one has a nice anagram – RINGTOSS.

Although LEAPINGS and PEALINGS both seem very reasonable, you should steer away from those and play PLEASING or ELAPSING if you can.

The fact that SALTINGS is OK but SAUTING is not such an obvious connection. I must admit that I had though SAUTING came from a French verb mean to jump, but apparently it mean to add salt. So why are they different? Apparently it is because a SALTING is a piece of land that is regularly flooded by the tides

Happy Scrabbling

Patrick