A D G N O U Y
B G L N O S Y
E I K Q S T U
A E F O P W T
A B C I I P U
A I M R T T W
Words that ONLY take an H as a front hook.
H-ACKEE
H-ARTAL
H-OLM
H-ALFA
H-AZAN
H-OUSEL
H-ALLEL
H-EMMER
H-OWLET
H-ALOED
H-EXACT
H-ARBOR
H-OIK
A letter from reader David Sutton
Following a query on the internet: "What is the shortest combination that is unique to just one word", I thought readers might be interested to a response I compiled.
The answer, as you might suspect, is two. The honour is shared by four two-letter combinations that appear in just one OSWi word each (counting any plural as a separate word). These are:
JK in PIROJKI (a small Russian pastry: I think this is already a plural)
QE in SHEQEL (plural is SHEQALIM)
RX in MARXISANT (an adjective meaning of Marxist sympathies)
VH in EVHOE (a cry of Bacchic frenzy)
As far as runners-up goes, a complete list of all two-letter combinations for which there are more than 1 but less than 10 occurrences in OSWi is given below. Perhaps readers might like to amuse themselves by seeing how many of the words involved they can think of: anyone who can get the lot by brainpower alone (needless to say, I had a bit of assistance from Pentium power) should feel very proud of themselves.
BZ(6) CB(8) CW(2) DQ(8) FG(8) FJ(8) FK(5) FV(2)
GV(2) GZ(9) HQ(7) HV(6) HZ(6) JD(2) JH(2) JJ(4)
JL(4) JN(4) JP(2) JT(2) JW(4) JY(4) LJ(8) LX(5)
MQ(5) PV(6) PZ(2) QF(2) QO(4) QS(8) QW(3)
SZ(5) TQ(7) VD(5) VG(5) VK(5) VZ(2) WJ(6)
WV(2) XD(2) XG(8) XK(2) XN(8) XQ(5) XR(4)
XV(3) YQ(2) YY(2) ZB(6) ZC(6) ZD(2) ZG(6) ZJ(2)
ZN(9) ZQ(5) ZS(6) ZT(2).
The combination occurring most frequently is ES, which appears at least once in 47436 OSWi words.
It's your turn to play second on this board with each of the six racks shown.
What are the highest scoring plays you can find in each case?
A total of 150 is good, 175 very good, and 200+ excellent.
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A D G N O U Y B G L N O S Y E I K Q S T U A E F O P W T A B C I I P U A I M R T T W |
DOUGHY D4 down 28
OBLONGS E5 down 40
QUIET C7 across 37
POTHOLED A8 across 42
HUBCAP D8 down 30
WARMTH D3 down 28