Today, we’ll deal with all of those juicy consonants. Actually, they’re not so juicy when there’s hardly any place to play them! You really need to know a handful of vowel-starved words to minimize the penalty points at the end of the game. That 30-point lead you enjoy will be wiped out if you have ten points worth of tiles when your opponent goes out … with an 11-point play!
NTH is a useful play. It means being the last in a series of infinitely decreasing or increasing values, amounts, etc. We’ve all heard of “nth degree,” which denotes the utmost in something. Points-wise, it’s hardly the utmost of anything but, still.
Down in the Valley
CWM is neither the latest rap group out of Texas nor a hip abbreviation for a fast food joint. It’s actually a bowl-shaped, steep-walled mountain basin carved by glaciation, often containing a small, round lake. It’s also a pretty neat play with high-value tiles. I actually had a chance to play this word in a recent game with Kiesha, but “NC” is not acceptable. I wound up playing NTH.
Related words: CIRQUE and CORRIE
Rude Raspberries
Comic books really help us learn words. I’m sure you’ve seen the big balloons dripping with saliva to simulate a raspberry. Turns out, the writers were only exaggerating slightly. You can play PHT or even PHPHT. If you’re really into bilabial fricatives, you can also play BRR and BRRR. Apparently, BR isn’t cold enough to qualify. It’s all a matter of degree.
Keyboard Design
QWERTY rhymes with dirty – which is probably the look you’ll get if you play this consonant-rich word. But it’s in the Official Scrabble Player’s Dictionary. So PHPHT!
ListsThat Make Us Go HMM…
I prefer to link to word-list type sites. These folks are really into all these odd words and deserve to be recognized. Plus, it frees me up from having to update this post! As always, double-check the agreed upon dictionary with your opponents, unless you’re playing online, where the software prevents unacceptable words.
Okay, that was fun. See you next week for another Scrabble Sunday! By the way, the inspiration for this post came from Kiesha Easley, the blog contest queen at We Blog Better.
I have been fortunate to watch two awesome blogging contests reach their exciting conclusions. I’m rooting for Ana Hoffman and Holly Jahangiri. Both of these ladies are special to me. Ana is the 21st century version of Rosalind Gardner – a Super Affiliate of the first order. Holly is the 21st century version of Edgar Allan Poe, O. Henry and Erma Bombeck. Ana inspires my left brain; Holly influences my right brain. Together, they are going to show you three easy steps you must take if you find yourself in an epic battle for contest spoils!
1.Ready
Mental preparation is key. This isn’t some ho-hum guest post you’re just going to dash off in an hour. This one is for all the marbles. It is the pillar post, the opus magnum, the Come– to–Mama article that’s going to blow away your competitors. You have to get that fire in your eyes, while letting the ice-water course through your veins. The heat is your blazing passion. The chill is your calculating copywriting skill. The combination is no less than a whole-brain project of Apostolic Palace proportions.
2.Aim
Each contest has rules, whether it is a one-post manifesto or a ten-week take-no-prisoners blogging challenge. Understanding the rules means focusing on the target with the right weapons.
Epic battles usually bring many offensive weapons to bear on the bloody field. In the blogosphere, your networks are your weapons. Have you trained on them? Are you certified? A finale is not the time to be puttering around with techniques! (If you have gamers in the house, you’ll appreciate this metaphor.)
3.Fire!
Take the shot. It’s that simple. None of your skills and preparations means anything if you can’t pull the trigger. Don’t be the crybaby Huntsman with a heart! The prize awaits!
Choose Your Target, THEN Pick Your Weapons
These three steps are just the framework. You didn’t really think it was going to be easy to “Write Epic Shit,” did you? No one can help you with that. The best anyone can do is to encourage you to keep trying. If you think you have what it takes, and if you have a strong message that is worth sharing, then persevere!
Decide who needs to hear your message. Enter a dozen contests a year. Practice using the weapons on your target. Eventually, you find the right combination of weapons and ammo to snipe your way to the top.
Study At The Feet of Masters
Time for a reality check. None of us is Neo from the Matrix. Until cyborg implants become commonplace, you’re just going to have to learn this stuff the old-fashioned way: study, emulate, reflect, improvise, master.
Let’s look at how Ana and Holly used the three steps to totally dominate the leaderboards of two very different types of contests. Along the way, we should think about how their competition fared in the face of the relentless onslaught of offensive firepower.
STUDY
First, you have to understand the audience for whatever you are going to teach or share. Expertise is not a prerequisite, in most cases. Indeed, coming in with no preconceived notions about your audience may save you from limiting behavior. It turns out that you don’t always start with a well-defined target:
Ana had to create a one-shot, one-kill article for The Online Marketing Blog Contest on FamousBloggers.net. Holly had to engage in guerilla combat on an uncharted virtual island, during a ten-week Surviving the Blog challenge at WeBlogBetter.com. Naturally, the targets were different:
“This contest is all about marketing! Participants will share marketing tips or do reviews for their best selling affiliate products, they will explain to us how they find out about the product, why they like it, and how they are promoting it…etc.
In addition, you can write a post about General Marketing tips and techniques for businesses owners.”
“This contest will be like no other in the blogosphere. I will recruit two teams of 5 bloggers. Each team will be confronted with the difficult task of building a successful blog together. They will receive training and will face many blogging challenges together.”
Remember, Ana is a marketer, so the contest she chose to participate in is perfect for her. As for Holly, well, you just have to understand that some writers are impulsive!
EMULATE
Personality is job one. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made. Now you know I’m kidding! But truthfully, personal stories get your audience to care. There is a saying that goes like this: “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” As platitudes go, it hits a sweet spot for authentic advice. Pay attention to the storytellers, for their words will reverberate long after the lesson has concluded.
Unless you are following your teacher everywhere, it’s tough to see every practice shot. You can use imagination and comparative analysis to think about why a particular post was written. If the post allows comments, read every one, especially the ones that are replies from the teacher! If you get an opportunity to ask about the choice of topic, do so!
Using my imagination, I see Ana on a hot streak in the various affiliate marketing circles. In fact, I watched her blow away the field during Andy Bailey’s CommentLuv Premium launch. Here’s this figurative David among a band of lumbering Goliaths, using her sling to bring them all down. Sometimes, epic is not in the post itself, but in the call to action:
Two completely different methods. Ana is well-known and can get right to the point. Holly, relatively unknown in the circle she chose for her battleground, had to demonstrate her ability to write the kind of article for which her call to action promoted.
IMPROVISE
If you want to win, you can’t do what everyone else is doing. Unless you can put a twist on it and make it your own. Ana’s post title seems to break every rule except for her use of How To!
Because of the type of contest she joined, Holly had many opportunities to write epic posts. Ironically, her battlefield weapons were more suited for conquering quests of quantity. Many excellent posts, by Holly and her team, were buried under an avalanche of posting frequency that didn’t do them justice. Consider these gems from Holly:
Winning isn’t everything. It’s not even the only thing. Both Ana and Holly are guaranteed to finish first or second (pending final ruling of the respective judges, of course!) However, here is a chance for you to connect with both of these awesome ladies in a meaningful way. If their stories moved you, please help push them to the top!
Tom Baker has organized an all-new 2011 Community Network Meme. This time around, we’re going to try coordinating the 12:01 a.m. posting by adjusting for time zones. Of course, this discriminates against folks outside of the Eastern Standard Time zone. Ha-ha, too bad!
Be sure to visit everyone on the list!
The Tough Questions
1. As a blogger, what do you draw inspirations from for your posts?
Mitchell: I am not a blogger:
“[I] don’t consider myself a blogger. Seriously! When I first started blogging, I picked up a bunch of limiting habits and “expert advice”. Niche writing and attention to SEO were the most onerous aspects, because I soon discovered that I just wanted to write. Bloggers tend to keep to a schedule. Pah! I write when the muse strikes.”
I share my thoughts and creative writing on a blogging platform. Inspiration is all around me, past, present and future. The past and future both ask “What if,” while the present just wants to know “Why and how” things are the way they are.
What if I had stayed at that soul-sucking civil service job? Why do people act like caged animals won’t maim them? What if the sun burns out next summer, will there still be ice cream?
2. If you could swap blogs with another blogger for a post, who would you switch with and why?
Mitchell: Mitch Mitchell, of I’m Just Sharing. It might confuse people but, it’s lots of fun. We have done this already. If you want more elaboration on question #1, check out the post I did on Mitch’s blog. Then check out the post Mitch did on Mitch’s blog.
3. If your blog had a theme song, what would it be? Why?
Mitchell: Do you remember the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer? At one point, the chess teacher, Bruce Pandolfini, wipes the pieces from the board and tells Josh to remember where all the pieces were. The young prodigy visualized the position and gave his teacher the correct answer.
Did you ever watch Alphas? The character Rachel has abilities in stark contrast to her team mate, Gary. While she has hyper-developed senses, he has a type of electroreception. Both see beyond the normal range experienced by humans.
My writing process is not so heroic as these examples. Yet, that’s kind of what goes on while I’m writing. Some people tell me that they boss their muses. I treat mine like ladies-in-waiting.
5. Your blog requires a cute, new, mascot – what would it be?
6. Do you feel you express your “true self” on your blog?
Mitchell: Only the public face. I can be as cantankerous as the next person. But you didn’t come to my blog for a can of tankards.
7. What is your biggest online pet-peeve?
Mitchell: Spam comments. They are worse than email spam because, if you moderate a blog, you’re forced to read that garbage long enough to determine that it must be deleted. At least in email, the stupid subject lines give you a quick clue.
8. If you could live in a fictional universe, where would you live? Why?
Mitchell: The Void, of course, because I created it and the sisters there are hot!
9. You’re having a bad day, you’re upset, you’re angry, or you’re sad – what is your go-to comfort?
Mitchell: Four slices of pepperoni pizza and enough Coca-cola to wash it all down.
Heh! Old-timers will recognize this recycled pizza box!
10. What is your favorite inspirational quote?
Mitchell: “Be the fisher, not the bait.”
11. If they were to make a movie based on your life, who would play you, your leading lady/man, your best friend, and your rival?
Mitchell: Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge, Lauryn Hill (because my wife approved), Sandra Bullock (ensuring an Oscar nomination) and Moe Howard, as a personification of all the stooges I’ve had to deal with.
12. Do you think the world is going to end in 2012?
Mitchell: No, but if it does, forward my email to Alpha Centauri, please.
13. If you could change anything about yourself, what would it be?
Mitchell: My fear of the number thirteen. Did you know that “superstitious” has thirteen letters? Aiiieeee!
14. What is your favorite season and why?
Mitchell: Spring. Things come back to life. Winter is a defeated memory and the scorch of Summer is a vague enough notion that it doesn’t spoil the pleasant days. Autumn is dysfunctional – it doesn’t even know what to call itself!
15. You’ve been bitten by a vampire. Would you fight it with all your undead being or would you embrace it for all it is worth?
Mitchell: Well, as I’m already bitten, there’s no do-over. What we do in this situation will likely be similar to what we did with the cards we were dealt in life: attitude is everything. I would sell vampire stories!
16. Have you personally met any of your blogger friends?
Mitchell: No. You mean they actually leave the house and stuff?
17. What does your favorite pair of underwear look like?
Mitchell: TMI, friends. For the record, were you asking about on her or on me? LOL
18. Have you ever drunk something right from the container in the refrigerator knowing other people will have to drink out of the same container later?
Mitchell: Does the pickle juice jar count? Because, technically, nobody else drinks out of it.
19. What is your favorite word and explain why?
Mitchell: “Privacy” – I’d rather not say.
20. 2011 is soon coming to a close, is there anything you’d like to do different on your blog in the year 2012?
Mitchell: Absolutely not! Everything I’ve done this year has been fun. I don’t have too many rules, especially after my editorial calendar collapsed. Spontaneity is the order of the day!
Aiieee! You just filled your rack with every vowel in the bag. Or so it seems. You are sick of playing two-letter words and you don’t have the guts to play ILEA. You decide to trade in your tiles. The question is, which vowels should you keep?
I tried to find out if anyone had bothered to check to see which vowel combinations yield the most chances for forming words. That turned up zero results, although I did find a nice list for inveterate vowel holders. Check out ScrabbleFinder.com. It reveals 274 words, from AA to URAEI.
I decided to do my own research. It is dull and tedious. But I discovered some interesting things about the 39 four- and five-letter words from that website. First, none of the words has two of the same vowel. Second, the letter U sucks, unless you pair it with an E. Here is the frequency of each vowel or vowel pair:
A (31), E (27), I (22), O (23), U (21)
A+E (19), A+I (18), A+O (17), E+U (16)
A+U (13), E+O (13), E+I (11), I+O (11)
I+U (11), O+U (9)
Finally, I came across some beautiful vowel-stuffed words that sent me off in another direction.
Praise the Cat and Pass the Fish
My dictionary offers these variant spellings for hallelujah: ALLELUIA or HALLELUIAH . Then, there are some useful alternatives for the lowly meow: MIAOU , MIAOW or MIAUL. There’s nothing to rejoice, though, as you are unlikely to get the opportunity to play any of these words.
You may want to go fishing. Swap tiles that give you a chance to build on ? ? ? F I S H. This is more likely to work if you already hold an I, S and either the F or the H. Swap whatever combination of the other four tiles you feel will give you a fighting chance of landing a decent word.
Even if this fishy scheme fails, you might be able do something with the ISH suffix. Of course, you can do this with other words that seem to be married to many other words, like ring or hand.
In general, and I will repeat this again, keep it simple when creating words. Think of anagrams,prefixes, suffixes and compound words that could break up your vowels.
The OSPD Hates Fishy Words
Wow! You have a chance to play AMIOIDEI. Not. Even though it is a word related to a type of fish, amioidei is not in the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary. In fact, there seems to be a whole class of fish that is unrecognized by this book. It’s positively anti-piscatorial, I tell you! It won’t accept agnatha, anaspida, holostei or placodermi. Good luck with finding any! You have a better chance of playing ataghan, naiads, ethos or proclaimed instead of those fishy words!
The point is, don’t be cute. Keep it simple when creating words. Think of anagrams,prefixes, suffixes and compound words that could break up your vowels.
Meow.
Okay, that was fun. See you next week for another Scrabble Sunday! By the way, the inspiration for this post came from Andrew Williams, the fabulously unrepentant gossip at the Billionaire’s Butler. He shared this wonderful video:
I was a child of the 70′s, a decade that some people believe was one of the most vapid in American history. Outside of the ending of the Vietnam War and the resignation of President Nixon, there really wasn’t a lot going on. What was there to really protest anymore? We were tired, and thus we turned to our music for some enjoyment.
When you compare it to what was coming, music of the 70′s was the last bastion of innocence in our music. Outside of a few fringe artists with no major record deals, all of our music was quite tame. Even what was considered as “hard rock” at the time really wasn’t all that hard. Near the end of the decade punk came around and people thought that was going to spell the end of Western Civilization, but even that was tame.
We wanted to be entertained. We wanted things to be lively. What we wanted was what KC & the Sunshine Band stated in their very first hit: “Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight.” That’s what we wanted. We didn’t want protest, we wanted to move. We wanted to be free. We wanted more than beach music; we wanted to move.
In the 70′s, movies pretty much helped determine the music the masses were going to enjoy. The music that really took off came from the movies Saturday Night Fever, Urban Cowboy and, strangely enough, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a movie that sank yet had its album still go to #1 as there were a lot of rock musicians that took part in it. Disco, country and rock really dominated the scene from 1974 until the end of the decade. Punk introduced itself around 1978, and before 1974 we were in a landscape of, well, “pop”.
Sure, it doesn’t really define itself well, as we have pop today, but back then it wasn’t as much about the look of an artist as it was about how a certain song might touch you. The pretty people weren’t as pretty as they are today. Think about some of these names: Phoebe Snow, Janis Ian, Leo Sayer, Andrew Gold, Don McLean, Kiki Dee, Elton John, Meatloaf… Try comparing them to Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Britney Spears, Miranda Lambert, Joss Stone… Nope, not a comparison to be made.
My favorite music was disco; disco ruled for its time period. There really wasn’t anything like that phenomenon of disco. That hard driving beat was easy to feel and dance to, there weren’t a lot of chord changes or a lot of lyrics that made you think; it was there to make you move. And it did, a lot. The Jackson Five might have been my favorite group, but until they came out with Dancing Machine I’d never jumped up and started dancing before.
Disco was our glamour. Disco changed fashion; platform shoes, leisure suits, satin disco shirts, flashy hot pants, high heels, big hair, lots of sparkle, short skirts, headbands. We were hot; I did have 2 leisure shirts and 2 satin shirts and I was the man!
And the artists; Donna Summer, Rose Royce, Gloria Gaynor, Dan Hartman, Peaches & Herb, Bee Gees, Chic, on and on… Donna Summer is the only woman whose picture I ever put up on my wall; loved her.
However, by the end of the decade we all knew things were about to change. Not only punk, but a new style of music had joined; rap. There was party rap and there were the early beginnings of “story rap”, where artists like Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five were talking about what they saw in their neighborhoods in the NYC area. There were words they used in their lyrics that one had never heard on popular records before. It was the precursor of what was to come, when things would get to the point where even presidents would start condemning certain music in their press conferences.
That was too serious for us though. Even with rock music we just wanted to, as REO Speedwagon said, “roll with the changes”. No confrontation; no drama. Just make us feel good. Ahh, the loss of innocence; I miss that.
Mitch Mitchell is a monster blogger with 5 blogs of his own and a writer of both blogs and articles for other clients. He has many varied interests and can write on many subjects, including 70′s music. Visit his empire!
Mitch Mitchell is a monster blogger with 5 blogs of his own and a writer of both blogs and articles for other clients. He has many varied interests and can write on many subjects, including 70′s music. Visit his empire!