Using the letter H

The best way to use an H is usually to make one of the many two-letter words it appears in – or rather, to make two, thus scoring it both ways, preferably on a premium square. The twos with an H are:

AH exclamation of surprise or pleasure

CH obsolete form of the pronoun ‘I’, once used in S.W. England

EH exclamation of surprise or inquiry

OH another exclamation of surprise

SH request for silence

UH expression of hesitation

HA exclamation with various uses – triumph, scorn, sudden understanding, half a laugh or yet another surprise

HE

HI

HM expression of doubt

HO expression representing laughter, especially when repeated

Don’t bluster about EH and OH, HI and HO, complaining they’re ‘not real words’. The dictionary writers, who are the professionals after all, say they are. So accept them, use them and score lots of points with them.

High scoring H words

If you’re looking for a bonus word with an H the best prefix or suffix is -ISH, either added to a noun, with appropriate adjustments to spelling if necessary

– BRUTISH, CHILDISH, LADDISH, or added to an adjective – DAMPISH, GREENISH, WARMISH. You might even find PIXYISH – if you ever get to play that you’ll definitely believe in fairies!

If you have some of those vital common letters – LNRST and two or three vowels – you could try:

HINTERS

NITHERS shivers

TARNISH

HAIRNET

INEARTH to bury in the earth

THERIAN scientific term for marsupials and related animals

HAUNTER

UNEARTH

ANTIHERO character in a book, film, etc, who lacks traditional heroic virtues

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.

Related Articles

Other Articles

The letter N

The N, being one of the one-point tiles, clearly figures in a lot of bonus words. You can think of dozens of words beginning with EN-, IN-, CON-, UN- and other prefixes. It comes up in endings like -MAN, -MENT, -TION and -ING. But just a few words of warning… Read More

Keep on the right track

Experienced players develop the habit of tile-tracking; that is, they start the game with a grid of the hundred tiles in a corner of their scoresheet, and cross them off as they are played. Doing this, you can quickly see if there are a lot of a particular letter to… Read More

You don’t get two goes in a row

We’ve mentioned in a few of these tips that it is not a good idea to place a vowel next to a premium square, or to open up a space where your opponent can get a high-scoring bonus. But why does it matter so much? Surely, you may wonder, I… Read More