Words Can Begin and End with Anything

Don’t forget to examine all possibilities when looking for words, especially those seven- and eight-letter words that get you the fifty-point bonus.

We don’t tend to think of words so easily if they begin with a vowel, or if they end with a vowel other than E. If I ask you to find the anagram of EOPRSY, chances are you’ll think of all sorts of non-words like prosey, sporey, poyser and posery before possibly coming up with the right answer: OSPREY. That’s because you’re not used to thinking of words beginning with O.

So try turning your letters around into less likely-looking combinations. You might just come up with that game-winning move you would otherwise have missed.

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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