Scrabble = Coin + Tonneau + Quin + Zyxt

Suppose you have this Scrabble board in front of you,

and these letters on your rack:





This could be your move, and score 62, (8 for “tonneau” [the cover on your ute] and 2 each for “it” and “no,” plus 50 for using all your tiles.) Well done!

The next player’s rack looks like this:





“Quin” scores 13. (Ok … “queen,” and “equine” would have been better … but that would spoil my story!!!) The next player’s rack looks like this:



Yuk!!! … but lookee lookee …

“Zyxt” - double letter for the Z, 20+4+8+1 = 33, times 3 for triple letter score = 99, plus 14 times 3 for triple letter score for “quint” = 42, plus 99 = 141. Very well done. But “quint”? and “zyxt”???

Quint is a run of five cards in the game of piquet, a French card game in the 16th century.

Zyxt is the last word in the Oxford English Dictionary. It is an obsolete word from Kent in England meaning, when you drill deeply down into the etymology, “to see,” for example, suppose you wanted to say “Can you see the sheep on the hill?” our ancient farmer might growl “zyxt thou sheep on yon hill?” (See’est thou the sheep on the hill over there?)

So, there you go!!!