*   *   *   *
  LOGOLOG
a weblog of wordplay by Eric Harshbarger

Front Hook: A

It's been a while since I have regularly updated my LOGOLOG website, but today I hope to begin a series of updates (roughly one per day for the next month). They will focus on a topic that non-wordies will undoubtedly find extraordinarily boring, but that I find absolutely fascinating.

I will talk about my favorite "front hooked" words.

In Scrabble parlance, a "front hook" is a letter that may be added to any already valid word on the board to create a new valid word (that is, "hooking" a letter onto a pre-existing word, often to squeeze your latest play onto the game board in an unexpected way). For example, suppose you are in the midst of a game of Scrabble and have the word COTTAGE on your rack. If the word LOVED were already on the board, and the positioning correct, you might be able to "front hook" the G in COTTAGE onto LOVED to spell GLOVED while throwing down all of your letters.

For each letter of the alphabet, I will reveal my favorite front hooks.

This is completely subjective, of course, but throughout the series I will try to explain why I like the particular examples. I don't always have a definite answer myself; sometimes I just think, "oh, that hook's kinda cool". But, hopefully, I'll be able to describe what that coolness (to me) is all about.

If readers have differing opinions, they are welcome to chime in in the comments below (but, ideally, give your own examples only for the letter currently being discussed in that particular LOGOLOG entry).

Anyway, to kick things off, let me begin at the beginning: the letter A.

A is for Asteroid

ASTEROID is a great example because of what it isn't. It isn't simply an example of an original word with an A tacked onto the front to negate the original meaning. Words like "amoral" or "asymmetric" have that property, the "A-" prefix simply creates new words that meaning "without ___" ("without morals", "without symmetry").

The word "asteroid", though, is nothing like that. Tacking an A onto "steroid" creates a completely unrelated word, and this is a quality of many of my favorite front hooks. Taking one word and adding a letter onto the front can often generate surprising results.

Here, both words, STEROID and ASTEROID, are both common enough, everyone knows what they mean; but I'd bet many people never realized that the one is simply the other with an A added to the front. It's just coincidence that the root of "asteroid" (from the Greek "aster-", meaning "star") happens to match up so closely to the "ster-" beginning "steroid" (that "ster-" is the same chemical based letters combination that appears in cholesterol).

It's also nice that the example is a fairly lengthy word. Front hooks on short words (5 letter of less) are usually pretty boring. But I'll save that discussion for a later entry.

That's enough for today.

-- Eric

[19 August 2014]
   
LOGOLOG


Archive
 Box Office Pa...
 Anti-Palindro...1
 Palindromic S...
 Dos Equis
 Box Office Pa...
 My Initial Su...
 Incomparable1
 Rock & Roll1
 Aye, Qs!
 This & That
 It's All Abou...1
 Non-Crashing ...
 Pseudo-palind...2
 Box Office Cu...
 All In A Row1
 Redividers
 Chemical Symb...1
 Over 636 Pali...2
 Omino Font
 Front Hook: S1
 History of Bo...1
 Front Hook: R
 Well, Moviego...6
 Front Hook: Q
 Front Hook: P
 Front Hook: O
 Front Hook: N1
 Front Hook: M
 Front Hook: L
 Front Hook: K
 Front Hook: J1
 Front Hook: I2
 Front Hook: H4
 Front Hook: G3
 Front Hook: F
 Front Hook: E
 Front Hook: D
 Front Hook: C
 Front Hook: B1
 Front Hook: A
 Multiple Solu...1
 And The Nomin...
 I want a cut ...2
 Stew-word-shi...1
 Scrabble Play...
 The answer is...2
 Pangrams and ...
 Pangrams and ...
 Secret Weapon...
 Colorful Citi...2
 Song, Song, S...2
 Near-Pangramm...2
 Favorite Numb...3
 Periodic Tabl...1
 Body Of Music...
 Filmed In Tec...3
 Cryptic Femal...1
 Colorful Film...1
 Elemental Bod...5
 Ambigrams Rev...1
 Calculated Wo...2
 Teacher Torto...2
 True Story
 Polly-Gone
 Sending My Re...
 A-B-C-D-ary1
 Word Dice3
 That Does It!3
 Lexomino Puzz...
 Morse Code Pa...5
 Bringing Ingo...7
 NIN
 Dot, Dot, Das...2
 Repeated lett...3
 Palindromic P...7
 Palindromic P...
 Sick Pun4
 Typesetting 2...2
 Heterogrammic...5
 Plurals1
 Phoneys1
 What is a "wo...
 Hollywood Nam...
 Front Hooks
 Half Price
 Through The 7...
 W4...1
 ;
 Bourne To Run4
 DVDs2
 V for Very Di...
 Scrabble: Ash...
 Scrabble, red...1
 A=1, B=2, C=32
 4 Sides To Ev...4
 Periodic Tabl...2
 BIVOUAC4
 String of Mov...3
 Where's Winsl...4
 para-palindro...4
 pun
 Standardized ...2
 Unintended Am...1
 Web Too Dah T...1
 Backronym2
 Fishy
 Too clever by...4
 Another wordy...
 Commercialize...1
 Beyond BOOKKE...7
 Not Positive ...11
 Scrabble Tabl...2
 Puzzle1
 Negativity
 Lightning1
 Another Pan-v...1
 Not So Frugal
 Not So Funny ...1
 Memory of GAM...5
 Musical Wordp...
 830
 Funny1
 Chemical Abbr...1
 Movie Rebuses7
 Television Sh...1
 Even More Het...
 More Heterogr...3
 Oooooo...2
 Those crazy H...2
 NFL4
 Wordmonger2
 Alli says, "A...
 A Puzzling St...3
 THE MAD ANAGR...5
 Synonymous Co...1
 CARNELIOUS3
 -und2
 Batteries2
 Names13
 Rubik Font3
 Under A Spell
 State The Rea...2
 7x7 Scrabble ...
 7x7 Scrabble ...
 Scrabble Squa...4
 Tube Maps2
 GAMES Magazin...
 Superbowl: ST...
 Letter Shifti...1
 Projects of L...
 Slices of PI,...
 Slices of PI,...
 Heterogrammic...
 QWERTY vs. Dv...2
 Word Chemistr...
 Heterogrammic...1
 Pangrammic Cr...1
 Comments for ...1
 Ambigrams
 Alphabet Soup4
 Logo
 Alpha-Pangram...
 Book List
 Scrabble Tile...
 D'oh!
 Letter Shifti...
 Palindromes
 Pangrammic Cr...
 Phobias1
 Pentominoes
 Word Searchin...1
 Welcome1

 
*   *
*   *
 
Leave a comment on LOGOLOG about the article: Front Hook: A
Your Name:  

Your comment (HTML tags will be removed):


Day of week today is:   


 
*   *
*   *
 
Copyright © 2005 - 2014, Eric C. Harshbarger
 
*   * *   *