Ah, we’ve reached it at last. The most difficult, frustrating letter of them all – but sometimes, if it falls right, a passport to a lovely high score.
You know the only two-letter Q word – QI, with its appropriate meaning of vital energy. The only three- letter Qs are:
QIS plural of QI
QIN a Chinese musical instrument
QAT a shrub with intoxicating leaves
QUA ‘in the capacity of’
SUQ an Arab market-place
In the ‘Using Q without a U’ article, I covered the U-less Q words, so it is not necessarily a cause for panic if you have a Q without a U.
And if you have six one-point tiles and a Q, it’s far from impossible to get a bonus if one of the other tiles is a U. There are words like:
QUARTES the fourth of the eight basic fencing positions
QUINTES the fifth of the eight … well, you can guess the rest.
Or commoner ones like SQUARES, INQUEST, QUITTER and QUARREL.
So now you have no need to be frightened of the Q. Having said that, it is rarely worth hanging on to – if you get the opportunity, play it. Even a simple QI for eleven points is usually worth playing. You might just be able to do something more exciting with the Q later on, but generally, it’s not the way to bet.
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.
All opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual writers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Collins, or its parent company, HarperCollins.
