Point for point, the Z is one of the best tiles you can pick. It’s worth ten points, but it often isn’t all that difficult to use. There are the two-letter words ZA (pizza) and ZO (a yak-cow crossbreed – you must have learnt that by now if nothing else). MAZE, MAIZE, DAZE, DOZE, BAIZE, SIZE, ZAP, ZIP, ZEAL, ZANY and many more should not be hard to spot. Try to make sure you use one to get the Z on a premium square to increase its value.
It’s not even too fanciful to think you might get a bonus word with a Z. Verbs that you might be used to spelling with an -ISE at the end can, almost without exception, also be spelt -IZE. Thus you could have REALIZE, ATOMIZE, ANODIZE (coat metal with an oxide), DIARIZE, LIONIZE, SANITIZE, MINIMIZE and lots more in the same vein.
It also often combines well with other high-scoring consonants in short words, such as in ZHO (that yak-cow thingy again), DZHO (yet another spelling of the same), FEZ, FIZ (same as FIZZ), JIZ (a wig) and WIZ (a wizard). And don’t forget QUIZ which you can hook into SQUIZ (an inquisitive glance).
Less likely to be useful is ZZZ, a sound representing sleep, or even its plural, which even I have to admit is rather ridiculous, ZZZS.
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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