Is qi a word? According to Word with Friends, yes. It is reported to be another spelling for chi, which is defined as natural energy or life force. For hardcore Scrabble-ites, this can sometimes be a hard pillow to swallow. The purists resist words that are popular for those hard-to-use letters like q and z.
This article from BBC News caught our attention, as many of those kinds of words were on the finale board of the British National Scrabble Championship. “Weird short words in Scrabble finale,” provided a translation of the twelve most obscure words on that board. Making the list were words like:
- Coniines: Alkaloid that makes up the poisonous part of hemlock. That double ii could come in handy.
- Enew: (Hawk) Falconry term for driving a bird into the water. Nice add-on opportunity.
- Litu: Plural of Litas, a former silver coin and monetary unit of Lithuania. U’s can pose a challenge without a q, so this could help.
I am an avid Scrabble and Word with Friends fan. However, I am not a snob. Use qi all you want, I say.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.
