The L is the least good of the one-point tiles. It’s OK, but not as strong as N, R, S and T for making bonus words. It doesn’t turn up in many common prefixes or suffixes either – there is ‘like’, but there is only one K so it won’t help you often. There is also -LY, the suffix for making adverbs, but that’s one of those endings that can lead you down a false trail. There seems little rhyme or reason behind the inclusion or exclusion of some -LY words from the list of playable words; for instance, you can have INNERLY but not outerly, and MAJORLY but not minorly.
Two-letter words with L are:
AL an Asian tree
EL elevated railway
LA a musical note
LI Chinese unit of distance
LO as in “… and behold”
By Barry Grossman
Barry is a leading UK Scrabble player and winner of several tournaments. He is the author of Scrabble for Beginners (Chambers), Need to Know Scrabble, Scrabble – Play to Win and The Little Book of Scrabble Trickster. He has also contributed to numerous other books on the subject of words and word-games, has been a series champion of Channel 4’s Countdown, and has written four comedy series for BBC Radio 4. He lives in Hertford.
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