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
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:
NITHERS shivers
INEARTH to bury in the earth
THERIAN scientific term for marsupials and related animals
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.
