THE ART OF THE HOOK by David Sutton
What makes a hook beautiful? What gives it that extra 'wow' factor?
The first quality that a beautiful hook must possess is that of sheer
surprise that it should be possible, but surprise alone is not
enough. There are, for example, many unexpected plural or third
person singular of the verb hooks, and beginners may well be
surprised that -S can hook onto such words as SUNK, GREW, RUDE, FOND,
SANG, ABRUPT, EAGER, SHOOK, FRAIL, BOUGHT, HOTTER, POTENT, and
SALTIER. These hooks are useful and interesting, but I would not call
them beautiful.
The next criterion, I think, is that the word being hooked is fairly
ordinary, whereas the word created by the hook is not. It is the
sudden transformation from humdrum to exotic which creates the wit
and beauty that I look for. For example, one can prefix the word
OBECHE with a B to create BOBECHE, but as to the majority of players
both OBECHE and BOBECHE will be equally obscure one does not get the
transformation effect I refer to. A similar objection applies to a
spectacular hook such as MELINITE - GMELINITE. Such hooks impress,
but they do not delight.
Finally, the hook should be difficult to see, in the sense of
involving a little bit of lateral thought, and shift of perception.
For example, someone plays the word HADDOCK and if you know SHADDOCK
it will probably spring to mind fairly readily. It is (at least for
me) more difficult to see that UNBELT yields SUNBELT, because
the parts of speech are different and because there is a shift of
stress in the pronunciation. Even a humble THESE to THESES can be a
bit of blind spot.
So, what are the kind of hooks do I call beautiful? Here are twenty
of them: see if you agree, and see if you can add others of your own.
G-ANTELOPE R-ANTIPOLE F-RABBIT S-UNBATHED
G-REENGAGE O-CREATE P-UNGENTLY W-ANTHILL
D-IMPLEMENT OVERDO-G G-ELASTIC B-ALLOW
V-ATMAN HOMELY-N B-HOOT B-LUSTROUS
B-ARTISAN W-INDIGO S-ENVY T-ACONITE
LEARNING POINT
An extract from the detailed annotated game
If you find yourself with a balanced rack of one and two-point tiles but cannot make a bonus word, then it is generally better to play two or three tiles to keep the score ticking over, keeping a core selection of bonus friendly letters, than to play just one tile, score very little, and hope for the right letter out of the bag. If you decide to fish for a bonus then you need to make sure the board is flexible for playing a bonus if you're lucky to get the right letter(s).
Construct the original valid board position from this set of jumbled moves and scores:
ASH JINX PIP AKIMBO QI VATIC OBLONGS AVOIDS
26 28 28 31 38 40 40 43
VERBAL INTERJECTIONS
Extract from an article on Interjections
AHS AHED AHING
EHS EHED EHING
OHS OHED OHING
AAHS AAHED AAHING
OOHS OOHED OOHING
HOHS HOHED HOHING
HOAS HOAED HOAING
HEYS HEYED HEYING
HOYS HOYED HOYING
WOWS WOWED WOWING
TSKS TSKED TSKING
AVOIDS C8a (28)
AKIMBO C8d (38)
OBLONGS E5d (40)
JINX F2d (43)
VATIC D1d (40)
PIP C2d (26)
ASH B1d (28)
QI B10a (31)