Forwords March 2006

Phoenix Club Garden Tournament

Confusing Directions

Chinese Scrabble cartoon

Cover Picture
	They were horrified to discover how the Vegetarians had been passing time before dinner

New Editor
Getting hooked It was my second week of belonging to the Hamilton Scrabble Club, and I was delighted with myself at finding UNUSUAL on my rack. (Like most newbies, I used to think that finding a seven-letter word was about as likely as coming across one of the seven wonders of the ancient world!) But where to play it? There was an open space below a vertical BAP. It was a book game, so I hopefully looked up BAP to see if it took an S, even though it wasn’t in the right place to make my hook. (Funny how we do that.) Lo and behold, I discovered the word BAPU, and the perfect hook for my word! That was a good start. The following week, in a dictionary game, I had a promising-looking MARAVED* on my rack, so looked it up. It’s not a word . . . BUT . . . I discovered the word MARAVEDI. And there was an I on the board screaming out to be hooked onto. Talk about being hooked – that was the defining moment when I became hooked on Scrabble. I’ve learned never to stop hoping that a word might have an unexpected hook. When you discover hooks like K on NAB (NABK) and M on ZEE (MZEE), you realise that anything’s possible. I’ve also learned to look up anything and everything in the word list – you never know what you might discover. I spend a lot of time discovering, but, unfortunately for my ranking, not enough time committing my discoveries to memory! But it doesn’t matter. Playing the game is pleasure and satisfaction enough; moving up the rankings is incidental. The words themselves are not the only reason I’m hooked on Scrabble. I’m hooked on my Scrabble “family”. I always look forward to playing against my long-time Scrabble opponents – my friends – and to catching up with them at tournaments. I also love the thought that I can play this game no matter how unfit I am, no matter what my physical disabilities might be, and no matter how old I become. Our older and/or disabled players are a constant inspiration to me, with their enthusiasm for life and Scrabble, sharp minds and huge word knowledge. It’s so nice to have an interest that I will never have to give up, that I can stay hooked on forever. . . . Which is the reason I accepted the job of editing Forwords. Please send me your stories. How did you get hooked? Please share your love and enthusiasm for Scrabble with the rest of us. Closing date for the June issue is 20 May. Enjoy every night on the tiles! [NABK is a woody vine and MARAVEDI is an old Spanish coin. I can still remember seeing MZEE (Swahili for old man) for the first time — I was stunned when Pam Mayall hooked the M onto my ZEE! * The convention in this magazine is to mark any non-Scrabble or bogus words with an asterisk. – Ed.]

Phoenix Club Garden Tournament	photos by Stan Gregec




Confusing Directions
The four points of the compass, NORTH, SOUTH, EAST and WEST, can all be pluralised. All directions can take -MOST, -WARD, -WARDS and -BOUND as suffixes, but north gets a special honour. It’s allowed to be written as NORWARD(S). North, south, east and west are also all verbs. So somebody or something can have NORTHED, SOUTHED, EASTED and WESTED, and can be NORTHING, SOUTHING, EASTING and WESTING. And, presumably, the person(s) or thing(s) that that are doing that would be a NORTHER(S), SOUTHER(S), EASTER(S) or WESTER(S). NORTHERED, SOUTHERED and WESTERED are OK, but, strangely, nobody or nothing can have EASTERED. You can be NORTHERING, SOUTHERING, and WESTERING, but not EASTERING, so just be careful which way you turn! We’ve all heard of NORTHERLIES, SOUTHERLIES, EASTERLIES and WESTERLIES, and their corresponding singular winds. No surprises there.	Places can be described as NORTHERN, SOUTHERN, EASTERN and WESTERN. We know about WESTERNS, but did you know NORTHERN and SOUTHERN can take an S, too? EASTERN is discriminated against in this respect, though – EASTERNS* is not a Scrabble word. There are places you can call NORTHLAND, SOUTHLAND, EASTLAND, but this time, poor old WESTLAND* – that all New Zealanders know for sure exists! – gets the cold shoulder in the Scrabble list. Not fair, is it? And for some strange reason, there can be more than one NORTHLAND and SOUTHLAND, but more than one EASTLAND is not allowed! Ah, but every dog has its day. EASTLIN(S) and WESTLIN(S) are good words, and there are no NORTHLIN* and SOUTHLIN* varieties. East gets a last little triumph, as well, because it takes a G end hook on EASTLIN to give us EASTLING and EASTLINGS.


Some words contain two of a high– scoring letter (J,Q,X,Z) and need a blank to be played, for example BUZZARD and JOJOBA. Here are a dozen more unusual words of this type to dazzle your opponents. HAJJI JIGAJOG IZZARD FIZZEN JUJUISM MAXIXE QAIMAQAM JIPIJAPA ZARZUELA AZOTIZE POZZOLAN JINJILI