101 Ways to Win at Scrabble: Top tips for Scrabble success. Barry Grossman

34 Seven-Letter Stems

      Just as you can use six-letter stems to help you remember lots of useful seven-letter words, you can take seven-letter stems and use them to find eight-letter words. About half of all bonus words played are eight-letter words – you can’t afford to neglect them.

      Let’s take a rack like AEGILNR; you may be able to play one of the seven-letter words it makes – ALIGNER, ENGRAIL (decorate a coin), LAERING (from laer, make a circle with wagons), LEARING, NARGILE (another name for hookah), REALIGN, REGINAL (queenly). But if it’s the sort of board that’s more amenable to eight-letter bonuses, it’s good to be able to call on the likes of these:

+A:	GERANIAL used in (lemony) perfume
	REGALIAN regal
+B:	BLEARING
+C:	CLEARING
	RELACING
+D:	DANGLIER
	DEARLING darling
+E:	ALGERINE woollen cloth
+F:	FINAGLER one who finagles, achieves their ends via trickery
+G:	REGALING
	LAGERING the act of creating a lager
+H:	NARGHILE
	NARGILEH other words for hookah
+I:	GAINLIER
+J:	JANGLIER
+L:	ALLERGIN
+M:	MALINGER
	GERMINAL
+N:	LEARNING
+O:	REGIONAL
	GERANIOL used in (rosy) perfumes
+P:	GRAPLINE
	PEARLING
+R:	GNARLIER
+S:	REALIGNS
	SALERING enclosure for livestock at market
+T:	ALERTING
	TERAGLIN Australian fish
+V:	RAVELING
+X:	RELAXING
+Y:	RELAYING
	YEARLING

35 Q but no U

      For most casual players, the letter that fills them with more dread than any other is the Q. Needing a U to be able to use it with any ‘normal’ word, it can leave you effectively playing with six tiles (removing any chance of a bonus, of course) or force a change and miss a go. So thank QI there are words with Q but no U, and as they are so crucial to getting rid of this rather unwanted letter, we should take a look at some of the most useful:

      FAQIR worldly-posession-spurning Muslim

      FIQH Islamic jurisprudence

      INQILAB revolution (in India, Pakistan)

      MBAQANGA South African pop music

      NIQAB, NIQAAB veil worn by some Muslims

      QABALA, QABALAH, QABALISM, QABALIST ancient

      Jewish mystical tradition QADI Muslim judge

      QAID Arabic chief

      QALAMDAN writing case

      QANAT irrigation channel

      QASIDA Arabic verse form

      QAT African shrub

      QAWWAL from QAWWALI

      QAWWALI Islamic song

      QI life force

      QIBLA direction of Mecca

      QIGONG exercise regime

      QIN Chinese instrument

      QINDAR, QINDARKA, QINTAR, QINTARKA Albanian coin

      QOPH Hebrew letter

      QORMA same as KORMA

      QWERTY

      SHEQALIM plural of SHEQEL

      SHEQEL Monetary unit of Israel

      TALAQ Muslim form of divorce

      TRANQ

      TSADDIQ, TZADDIQ Hasidic Jewish leader

      WAQF endowment in Muslim law

      YAQONA Polynesian shrub

      All of these can have an S added to them except

      QINDARKA, QINTARKA and SHEQALIM, and

      QWERTY can have the plural QWERTIES or

      QWERTYS.

      The big one is, paradoxically, the smallest one – QI. With an I on your rack, or usable on the board, the Q should no longer be a major problem to get rid of.

36 Don’t Forget the Americans

      Scrabble has always allowed American spellings – more than ever since we incorporated their word list into ours a few years ago. So have no fear about playing COLOR or TRAVELED (as against the British TRAVELLED). Americans are also keen on prefixes like ANTI-, giving words like ANTICOLD, ANTIMAN and ANTIRIOT, and CO-, whence we get COWRITE, CODRIVE and COMANAGE.