Quiz of the Day
Word Games & Language
Monday, 13 April 2026
National Scrabble Day — word origins, longest words, language trivia
1. How many points is the letter 'Z' worth in Scrabble?
- 12
- 8
- 10
- 5
Z and Q are the two highest-scoring letters in Scrabble at 10 points each. The highest possible single-word score is 1,778 points for 'oxyphenbutazone' — though it would require an impossibly perfect board setup.
2. What is the most commonly used word in the English language?
- A
- Is
- The
- I
'The' accounts for about 7% of all words in written English — roughly one in every 14 words. It's been the most common English word for centuries.
3. Which language has the most words?
- Spanish
- Arabic
- Mandarin Chinese
- English
English has over 170,000 words in current use according to the Oxford English Dictionary, plus about 47,000 obsolete words. New words are added every year.
4. What is a palindrome?
- A word that sounds like what it describes
- A word that reads the same backwards and forwards
- A word with two opposite meanings
- A word borrowed from another language
Famous palindromes include 'racecar', 'kayak', and the phrase 'A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!' The longest single-word palindrome in English is debated, but 'tattarrattat' (coined by James Joyce) is a contender.
5. How many letters are in the Hawaiian alphabet?
- 18
- 13
- 26
- 12
Hawaiian uses just 13 letters: A, E, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, U, W plus the ʻokina (glottal stop). This makes it one of the world's smallest alphabets.
6. What board game was invented by Alfred Mosher Butts in 1938?
- Bananagrams
- Boggle
- Upwords
- Scrabble
Butts originally called it 'Lexiko' and then 'Criss-Crosswords'. It was rejected by every major game company before finally being renamed Scrabble and selling 150 million sets worldwide.
7. What is the longest word in the English language that contains no repeated letters?
- Misconjugatedly
- Uncopyrightable
- Subdermatoglyphic
- Dermatoglyphics
At 17 letters, 'subdermatoglyphic' (relating to the underlying skin patterns that create fingerprints) uses each letter only once — it's an isogram.
8. Which language is written from right to left?
- Thai
- Arabic
- Hindi
- Japanese
Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Urdu are all written right to left. Interestingly, numbers in Arabic text are still read left to right, creating a bidirectional reading experience.
9. What is the fear of long words ironically called?
- Sesquipedalophobia
- Logophobia
- Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia
- Verbophobia
At 36 letters, this word is deliberately designed to be terrifying for anyone who actually has the condition. The more clinical term 'sesquipedalophobia' is only slightly less cruel.
10. What does the word 'OK' originally stand for?
- Outer Kingdom
- Oll Korrect
- Open Knowledge
- Old Kinderhook
'OK' originated in 1839 Boston as a humorous abbreviation of 'Oll Korrect' (a deliberate misspelling of 'All Correct'). It's now the most universally understood word on Earth.
11. In which word game do players shake lettered dice in a grid and find words within a time limit?
- Scrabble
- Bananagrams
- Boggle
- Wordle
Boggle was invented by Allan Turoff and first published by Parker Brothers in 1972. Competitive Boggle players can typically find over 100 words in a single 3-minute round.
12. What is the shortest complete sentence in the English language?
- Do.
- Be.
- I am.
- Go.
While 'Go.' and 'I am.' are both valid, 'Go.' wins because it's a complete imperative sentence with just two letters — the subject 'you' is implied.
13. Which letter of the English alphabet is used least frequently?
- J
- Z
- Q
- X
Z appears in only about 0.07% of English words. It was actually dropped from the English alphabet once — the Romans removed it around 300 BC before reinstating it later.
14. What online word game created by Josh Wardle went viral in late 2021?
- Wordle
- Heardle
- Nerdle
- Quordle
Wardle originally created Wordle just for his partner. It went from 90 players in November 2021 to over 2 million by January 2022, and was bought by The New York Times for a seven-figure sum.
15. What is the only English word that ends in the letters '-mt'?
- Exempt
- Dreamt
- Prompt
- Attempt
'Dreamt' (and its variant 'undreamt') are the only common English words ending in '-mt'. The more standard past tense 'dreamed' is increasingly replacing 'dreamt' in modern usage.