by Susan Quilty

Created on: August 07, 2011

Improving your score in Scrabble often means expanding your vocabulary. While that might mean brushing up on lesser used terms, it also includes learning a variety of very short words. What many casual Scrabble players do not realize is that the shortest words can help bring you the highest scores.

Why Short Words are Important

In Scrabble, there is more to winning than knowing impressive words or words that use a lot of letters. To improve your score, the key is using the Scrabble board to your advantage. That means placing new words against existing words in creative ways, and making the most of the bonus squares on the board. It also means finding ways to play all of your tiles, even if that means using them in two-letter words over the course of several turns.

Two-Letter and Three-Letter Words

The shortest words you can play in Scrabble are formed with just two letters. That does not mean that you are limited to simple words like: at, ax, do, go, he, if, is, it, of, oh, or, to and us. The Official Scrabble Dictionary includes about 100 two-letter words. There are some very handy two-letter words that most people do not know, such as: de, ef, jo, ka, mm, qi, sh, wo, xu, and za.

You can find full lists of acceptable two-letter and three-letter words at Scrabble.com.

Flexible Placement

When placing new words on the board, you are limited by the position of the existing words. You might have the tiles to spell an eight-letter word, but that won’t matter if there isn’t room on the board for it. Shorter words can be worked in between existing words, and can often be used to create multiple new words. They may even be used to reach a bonus square, which can mean big points if one of the tiles has a high value.

Parallel Words

In Scrabble, you can only play one new word on each turn. However, you can arrange your new word in a way that it makes multiple words in another direction. This is commonly done by playing parallel words.

For example, if the board has the existing word “dead” with space below it, you could easily add the word “end” in parallel directly below it. Line up the words and you will score points for creating four new words: end, de, en, ad.

High Value Tiles

When you have tiles with higher values (q, z, x, j, etc.) you do not want to waste a chance at earning points for them. It would be great to use them in a long word that falls on a triple-word square, but it doesn’t always work out that way. And if you do not use them by the end of the game, their values will be subtracted from your score.

Knowing some of the shortest acceptable Scrabble words will often keep you from being stuck with no where to play high value tiles. For example, you can use a “q” tile for short words like “qi” or “qua.”

If you want to improve your Scrabble scores, make an effort to learn several of the shortest words that are allowed in the game. With a little practice, you may just become your family’s Scrabble Champion.

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