{"id":4594,"date":"2021-01-30T06:58:08","date_gmt":"2021-01-30T06:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/?p=4594"},"modified":"2021-01-30T06:58:08","modified_gmt":"2021-01-30T06:58:08","slug":"scrabbungulate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/2021\/01\/30\/scrabbungulate\/","title":{"rendered":"Scrabbungulate"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m not sure whether either of you know that I am rather fond of Scrabble<\/a>. I can be found haunting the Internet Scrabble Club<\/a> under the name of zedwave<\/strong>, (playing Scrabble online with people you know only as nicknames is, I suppose, an intellectual and therefore risk-free version of cottaging<\/a>) or idly passing the time with some Scrabble app or another on my phone. A love of this game was incarcerated<\/del> inculcated<\/del> instilled in me by my parents, who were amused when the zoology-obsessed infant Gee played words such as ORYX<\/a>. My parents now no longer dare play me, and I have in turn passed it on to the Offspring, especially Gee Minor, who regularly takes me to the cleaners.<\/p>\n

During my time as a graduate in Cambridge I was a member of the University Scrabble club, and was thrilled when, during a Town-versus-Gown match, my opponent rashly challenged my play of the word ADDAX<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"

There are two ungulates in this picture.<\/p><\/div>\n

Incidents such as this kindled the ambition, long ago, to write an article on all the exotic antelopes<\/a> and other ungulates<\/a> whose euphonious names can help one out of a tight lexical corner. Two feature in the picture you see here — the aforementioned ORYX and the ever-useful OX, which scores mightily if you can play the X on a triple-letter score in two words simultaneously, together, both at once, and at the same time.<\/p>\n

So, yesterday, while playing online, I noted down all the Scrabble-friendly names of antelopes and other ungulates I could think of without looking them up. I discovered more than twenty without breaking a sweat, and here they are, in (as they say on all the game shows), in no particular order.<\/p>\n

BOK, KOB, TOPI, NILGAI, ORYX, ADDAX, GAUR, ANOA, SAOLA, NYALA, OKAPI, PUDU, KUDU, GNU, ELAND, IMPALA, SAIGA, QUAGGA, ZEBU, DIBATAG, YAK, OX and the ever-useful ZO (can also be spelled DZO or DZHO).<\/p>\n

I am sure you can think of loads more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m not sure whether either of you know that I am rather fond of Scrabble. I can be found haunting the Internet Scrabble Club under the name of zedwave, (playing Scrabble online with people you know only as nicknames is, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10],"tags":[1719,1721,1711,1714,1713,1732,1737,1736,1727,1720,1726,1728,1715,1725,1717,1723,472,1718,1734,1724,1730,1729,1722,226,1716,1712,1733,1731,1735],"class_list":["post-4594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-silliness","category-writing","tag-addax","tag-anoa","tag-antelope","tag-bok","tag-cottaging","tag-dibatag","tag-dzho","tag-dzo","tag-eland","tag-gaur","tag-gnu","tag-impala","tag-kob","tag-kudu","tag-nilgai","tag-nyala","tag-okapi","tag-oryx","tag-ox","tag-pudu","tag-quagga","tag-saiga","tag-saola","tag-scrabble","tag-topi","tag-ungulate","tag-yak","tag-zebu","tag-zo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4594\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/cromercrox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}