Listen to this episode at theallusionist.org/two
This is the Allusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, cheat on my own four-letter word season thanks to this suggestion from listener Erica: “Perhaps an idea for a bonus ep of a four-letter word season would be one on two-letter words: there’s an established list that Scrabble nerds end up memorizing, and it’s full of weirdness. For example: aa, oe, and mm are all acceptable words. But ew is not.”
Spoiler, ‘ew’ is now! It was added to the Scrabble dictionary in 2018. So, enjoy that.
There are two different lists of words in English deemed acceptable in Scrabble: NASPA, the North American Scrabble Players Association, which has currently 107 two-letter words, and Collins Scrabble Words, formerly known as SOWPODS, used by the rest of the world and contains at present 127 two-letter words.
Scrabble doesn’t allow proper nouns or initialisms, or prefixes or suffixes, or some abbreviations but other abbreviations are fine?
Anyway, here are the two-letter words that are allowed in Scrabble, so if you’re playing one and your opponent calls you out on it, “That’s not real!” you can say, “Actually, it means a digging tool.”
While I remember: if you’re in Vancouver BC, I’ve got a couple of events coming up: I’ll be talking about the rather surprising Icelandic translation of Dracula at Nerd Nite on 10 September 2025 at the Fox Cabaret, and on 16 October I’ll be talking with Samin Nosrat about her new book Good Things, the follow-up to the super hit cookbook and TV show Salt Fat Acid Heat, that’s at the Chan Centre. I’ve linked to tickets to both events at theallusionist.org/events. Also thanks to all of you who came along to the Allusionist beach meetup this month; I was very excited to learn that at the previous meetup, a romance had blossomed.
On with the two-letter words.
AA, A A, although it’s a Hawaiian word so really it is spelled ʻaʻā with an ʻokina, the glottal stop represented orthographically by an inverted comma.
ʻAʻā means a type of lava, basaltic lava that is rough and stony, with a surface covered in shards of lava called clinkers.
AB, A B, an abdominal muscle, on its own, no friends.
AD, A D, an abbreviation for advertisement, also the Latin preposition meaning towards - like in the terms ‘ad infinitum’, ‘ad nauseam’ and ‘ad lib’, which arrived in English as a music term in the early 19th century, meaning ‘to pleasure’, ‘lib’ being a shortening of the Latin ‘libitum’ meaning ‘pleasure’, same as where ‘libido’ came from.
AE, A E, meaning ‘one’, and also the letter that was known as ash in Old English, the one where the a and e are jammed together and in lower case look like a hastily tied shoelace.
AG, A G, an abbreviation for ‘agriculture’, I’m a little surprised Scrabble allows it.
AH, A H, ah! Aah. Ah! The interjection. Ah, yes, you know it, ah.
AI, A I, not the abbreviation that I am really bored of hearing already, but a type of pale-throated sloth.
AL, A L, a mulberry tree found in India.
AM, A M, my state of being.
AN, A N, the indefinite article.
AR, A R, the letter R.
AS, A S, it’s a conjunction, it’s a preposition, it can even be an adverb, and it originated as a squished down version of ‘also’! And also it is a word for an ancient Roman coin, the plural of which, hold onto your butts, is ‘asses’. Its predecessor, which was more of a lump of bronze than a coin, was the ‘aes rude’.
AT, A T: the preposition, and the curly symbol @.
AW, A W: the expression, “Aw!”
AX, A X, the chopping tool, sometimes has an E on the end, but chopped it off.
AY, A Y, the interjection meaning ‘yes’. Can also be spelled with an E on the end, but the ax took it too.
BA, B A, in ancient Egypt, souls were imagined as being composed of several parts, one of which was ba, the personality.
BE, B E, the verb to be.
BI, B I, as in bisexual.
BO, B O, a friend - apparently.
BY, B Y, preposition, adverb, noun: some of these two-letter words really get a lot done.
The next one is not valid in North America, but rest of the world, you can play it:
CH, C H, a shortening of the old first person pronoun ‘ich’ which was used in several regions of England until standardization got to it in the 15th century, and it started to dwindle.
DA, D A, an abbreviation of ‘dad’.
DE, D E, /dē/ in Latin, /de/ in French, meaning ‘from’ in both.
DI, DI, another one just for the Collins list users: the nominitive plural form of ‘deus’, the Latin word for ‘god’, a tenuous inclusion I think.
DO, D O, the verb, and sometimes noun - bit of a do.
EA, E A, another Collins-only inclusion, it means a river.
ED, E D, pertaining to education.
EE, E E, not for you, North American Scrabblists, it’s an old Scots word for eye.
EF, E F, the letter F.
EH, E H, the exclamation, “eh?” “Eh.”
EL, E L, the elevated railway.
EM, E M, the letter M.
EN, E N, the letter N.
ER, E R, the hesitant expression.
ES, E S, the letter S.
ET, E T, past tense of ‘eat’.
EW, E W, “Ew!” yes, it’s allowed in Scrabble now.
EX, E X, the verb to cross out or delete, or the preposition implying something is not included, or the noun meaning your ex.
FA, F A, the musical note in solfege, as in “fa, a long, long way to run,” not to be confused with the three-letter word ‘far’ for our purposes though!
FE, F E, a variant of the Hebrew letter pe.
FY, F Y, the expostulation of frustration, “Oh fy and damnation - I’m playing Scrabble in North America and I can’t use this word.”
GI, G I, a Japanese word for clothing that is often used to mean the loose-fitting white suit worn to do martial arts.
GO, G O, the verb, to make your way, to wend.
GU, G U, a variant of gju, which is a type of violin from Shetland, and therefore perhaps unsurprisingly it is not a type of violin used in the North American Scrabble word list.
HA, H A, the laugh.
HE, H E, the third person pronoun.
HI, H I, hi! Hello! Hi!
HM, H M, hmmm, is it though? Hmm.
HO, H O, as in “ho ho ho” or “What ho!” or another nose of surprise.
ID, I D, the part of the psyche with the most base urges.
IF, I F, the conditional conjunction and also the noun, if, an uncertainty.
IN, I N, as in in.
IO, I O, a triumphant exclamation, but not for you North Americans playing Scrabble.
IS, I S, the being verb.
IT, I T, not information technology, the third person pronoun - and the scary clown monster.
JA, J A, meaning ‘yes’, but if you’re asking if you can play it in North American Scrabble, the answer is no.
JO, J O, a Scots word for sweetheart.
KA, K A, another part of the ancient Egyptian concept of soul, this aspect being the essence that distinguishes a living person from a dead one.
KI, K I, vital energy.
KO, K O, a traditional Māori digging tool, a long wooden pole with one sharp end and a footrest partway up. Not in the NASPA list and nor is the next two-letter word, quite high value:
KY, K Y, Scottish word for cows.
LA, L A, another tone in the scale, can you use the whole do re mi fa so la ti do in Scrabble, yes you can.
LI, L I, a Chinese distance measurement, equivalent to about 500 metres.
LO, L O, another expression of surprise or interjection, often served with a chaser of “and behold”.
MA, M A, mother.
ME, M E, personal pronoun.
MI, M I, another note on the musical scale.
MM, M M, mm, yes, or mm, delicious, although I think I’d always go for at least three Ms for deliciousness.
MO, M O, a moment.
MU, M U, twelfth letter of the Greek alphabet.
MY, M Y, another personal pronoun.
NA, N A, a synonym for no.
NE, N E, meaning born.
NO, N O, means NO.
NU, N U, 13th letter in the Greek alphabet.
NY, N Y, another spelling of ‘nigh’ as in “the end is nigh.” But using ny in Scrabble is not nigh for players playing North American rules. Nor is:
OB, O B, supposedly an expression of opposition, although do the dictionaries want to proclaim it, not really.
OD, O D, a hypothetical force named after the god Odin.
OE, O E, a whirlwind off the Faroe Islands, or an old Scottish word for a grandchild born outside of marriage.
OF, O F, the preposition of belonging.
OH, O H, the exclamation.
OI, O I, both the yell, and a Māori name for the grey-faced petrel, also known as the muttonbird.
OK, O K, alright.
OM, O M, the Hindu syllable that is a sacred sound and used as a mantra.
ON, O N, oh it’s on.
OO, O O, can just mean “ooh” but the ʻōʻō is also a Hawaiian bird that was declared extinct in the year 2000. It had already been declared extinct twice before, in the early 1970s and before that the 1940s, but it showed up again. So don’t ever count out the ʻōʻō, it’s just running late.
OP, O P, an art style, as well as abbreviation for ‘operation’, and ‘opportunity’ as in ‘photo op’.
OR, O R, the conjunction between alternatives, also, gold.
OS, O S, a bone, or a mouth-like opening, or a long narrow ridge of gravel and sand deposited by streams that flow underneath glaciers.
OU, O U, an expression, or a South African slang term for a bloke, or the ʻōʻū, an extinct Hawaiian honeycreeper bird. Not allowed in North American Scrabble though.
OW, O W, the expression of pain!
OX, O X, the bovine animal.
OY, O Y, the expostulation.
PA, P A, father.
PE, P E, a Hebrew letter.
PI, P I, a Greek letter.
PO, P O, a chamberpot.
QI, Q I, vital force, and also a high value Scrabble play.
RE, R E, the musical note, do re mi, that one.
SH, S H, shhhh, be quiet!
SI, S I, spoiler for ‘ti’ coming up, also in the musical scale, because ‘si’ is a variant.
SO, S O, also a note in the musical scale, but also the conjunction and adverb.
ST, S T, an exclamation, to get people to shut up or at least give you their attention. Not a valid play in North American scrabble though.
TA, T A, thank you.
TE, T E, another variant of the next one,
TI, T I, a musical note in the scale!
TO, T O, the preposition.
UG, U G, an object of disgust or fear, or vomit, or verb forms thereof. Not for you Scrabbling in North America though.
UH, U H, the hesitant expression, uhhh.
UM, U M, the other hesitant expression.
UN, U N, an alt spelling of ‘one’.
UP, U P, the direction.
UR, U R, another hesitant expression.
US, U S, the pronoun.
UT, U T, another musical note - usually the C note, and it has been supplanted by ‘do’ in ‘do re mi’.
WE, W E, the first person plural pronoun.
WO, W O, an old spelling of ‘woe’. The ax from earlier must have hewn off another E.
XI, X I, the fourteenth letter of the Greek alphabet.
XU, X U, Vietnamese monetary unit.
YA, Y A, pronunciation variant of ‘you’ and ‘yes’. Also the Chinese white pear.
YE, Y E, you, in olden tmes.
YO, Y O, the expression.
YU, Y U, a Chinese word for jade and other pretty rocks. Not allowed in North American scrabble.
ZA, Z A, letter of the Arabic alphabet but also slang term for pizza.
ZE, Z E, the gender-free pronoun, and for anyone griping that it’s newfangled, it has been around since at least 1864. Nonetheless, you can’t play it in North American Scrabble, nor can you use the last of our two-letter words, which is too bad for you because the Z words are high value:
ZO, Z O, a Tibetan animal that is the result of breeding cattle with yaks. It is often spelled DZO or ZHO, slso sometimes known by the portmanteau yattle and yakow, which is a mess of a portmanteau, I cannot endorse it.
Those were the two-letter words you can play in Scrabble - a little break from four letter words.
And soon, we will reach the season finale of Four Letter Word Season.
There’s been a Scrabble game happening via correspondence between far-flung Allusioverse members - what’s the Allusioverse? It’s the community of listeners who help fund this show’s continuing existence, for which I’m very grateful, because it’s really rather tricky to keep media afloat in These Times, particularly without the financing of an evil tech overlord, and it’s baffling to imagine why but evil tech overlords have thus far found me and my work 100% resistable.
But happily, a bunch of you are into it, and for your monthly donations of as little as two dollars a month, you get behind the scenes info about the making of every episode, regular livestreams where I read soothingly from my ample collection of dictionaries, and membership of the Allusioverse community to discuss fried foods of the state fairs, journal prompts, dealing with friends’ unwelcome habits, and cat sneezes. Oh and long-distance Scrabble games. And watchalongs - we’re currently gathering weekly for The Great British Sewing Bee and soon the new season of the Great British Bake Off, once more unto the breach. Do join for any or all of that, via theallusionist.org/donate.
Your randomly selected word from the dictionary today is…
tracasseries, plural noun, archaic: petty quarrels or annoyances.
Try using ‘tracasseries’ in an email today.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, on the unceded ancestral and traditional territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Music is by the singer and composer Martin Austwick of palebirdmusic.com.
Our ad partner is Multitude. To sponsor this show, so I can talk with warmth and affection about your product or thing, get in touch with them at multitude.productions/ads.
And you can hear or read every episode, including all the other ones in Four Letter Word Season, get more information about the episode topics, and see the full dictionary entries for the randomly selected words, and browse the lexicon of every term ever featured in the show linked to which episode it’s in, all at the show’s forever home theallusionist.org.
