#2 letter words

[businessinsider]

I'm a tournament Scrabble player — here's a list of the words that will raise your score by 50 points

I am a tournament Scrabble player, and people often ask me how they can improve their Scrabble skills.

Any expert will tell you that learning the two-letter words is a surefire way to increase your average score by 50 points a game.

I compiled a list of the 105 valid two-letter words, which you can memorize to dominate your next game night.

[isthataword]

LI

: a Chinese unit of measurement.

Sound a little vague? Here’s Simon Winchester’s description of a “li,” from The River at the Center of the World:

“The phrase ‘ten thousand li’ is widely used in China to describe an entity–most notably the Great Wall–that is known for its extreme length. The phrase is not meant to be taken literally–just as well considering li’s notorious flexibility asa unit of measure: an uphill li being longer than a downhill li, a Shanghai li being shorter than a Chengdu li. But the Yangtze benefits from a happy arithmetical accident: the early western railway builders in China fixed a firm definition onto the unit, making on li equivalent to precisely 25/58ths of an English mile. Since the Yangtze measures 3964 miles from source to sea, [Qing dynasty court painter who titled a painting Wen Li Chang Jiang–the Ten thousand li Yangtze] Wang Hui might consider his fancy vindicated: his ten-thousand-li river is 9200 li from end to end–near enough.

[isthataword]

XI

: a Greek letter (plural: XIS)

[Pronounced like the "zai" in bonsai.] 

[isthataword]

ET

: a past tense of EAT

Yep, whatever food you consumed yesterday you ATE, but you also ET them too, if you prefer. And with the ease that ET provides in attaching new, long words to those already on the board, you probably will prefer ET in Scrabble. Eat your heart out, ate. 

This week's theme: words about food.

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[isthataword]

ZA

: pizza

One of the most useful in Scrabble, the word ZA (as in, “I’ll have a slice of za” or “Let’s go for some za”) became popular on Southern California college campuses in the 1970s. These days there’s a fairly well-known pizza place in San Francisco called Za’s, and The Za House in Vancouver, but the word has never quite caught on much elsewhere, particularly on the East Coast, where—outside of Scrabble—it’s just as likely to hear someone refer to a slice of toast as “toe.”

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[isthataword]

LI

LI: a Chinese unit of distance equal to .5 kilometer

The OSPD defines a LI simply as "a Chinese unit of distance." In "Is That A Word," I define a LI as equal to .4 miles, but upon further research I think it's more accurate to say it's equal to half a kilometer, which would be closer to 1/3 of a mile. The history of the changing length of the LI is outlined succinctly on this Wikipedia page.

However, as a kilometer is also known as a KLICK, a LI is technically .5 a KLICK--though if measuring by letters "L-I" is actually .4 of a "KLICK."

[isthataword]

OE

OE: defined by the OSPD as “a whirlwind off the Faeroe Islands,” the OED’s definition is “a small island”

Oe is similar to the words for island in Danish, Ø, Swedish, ö, and øy in Norwegian.

[isthataword]

AA

AA: a type of stony, rough lava

See here: aa on Wikipedia