Maori Health

I learned a Maori word on Monday night. HAUORA. Unfortunately for Calum, who played it against me, it has not made it into our dictionary yet. Maybe it will in 2027! However, it was still interesting. This is what I got when I tried Google later that evening:

Hauora is a Māori philosophy of health unique to Aotearoa. It comprises: Taha tinana (the physical dimension) Physical wellbeing as well as the physical body, its growth, development, and ability to move, and ways of caring for it. Taha hinengaro (the mental dimension)

None of those Maori words are listed in Zyzzyva

TAHA is allowed because it is a South African bird

With TINANA the only allowable word is NAIANT

I didn’t know that word. It is a heraldic adjective describing something swimming. A flag or a coat of arms with two fishes drawn with tails flexed can be called two fishes naiant. I can’t think of a flag, but maybe there is a fishing club somewhere with a coat of arms like that.

A Grade Challenge

It is the end of the game, and you need a bingo to win. You are lucky enough to have two blanks and the letters M A O R I, but the board is very blocked. There is an H sticking up in the middle of the board at the top, but there is also a V in the top right-hand corner. That is a shame, because HARMONIC would have been an easy word to find. That V even stops you putting 6 letters after the H, so CHOIRMAN doesn’t fit either. 3 other words that would have been tricky to find can be ruled out for the same reason: RHODAMIN, CHORIAMB and HAIRWORM.

However, you can make 6 words of 8 letters that do not have the H in either the 1st or 2nd position. How many of them can you find?

To recap. You have two blanks and M A O R I and are playing through an H

The H cannot be in the first two letters of your 8 letter word

Yes, I know it is very difficult working with 2 blanks, but that is why it is called the A Grade Challenge!

B & C Grade Study List

There are 22 words which have 6 letters, 4 vowels and an H. 5 of those words need 4 O’s. Let’s get those out of the way first:

BOOHOO   To cry

HOODOO   To bring bad luck

HOOPOO   Perching bird with a large crest

HOOROO   Australian for goodbye. Like CHEERIO

WOOHOO   Exclamation of joy

The other 17 words are:

BOOHAI   Remote rural place

HAIKAI   Series of linked haiku – doesn’t take an S

HAIQUE   Arab head covering

HEALEE   Someone who is being healed

HEARIE   Archaic spelling of the word hairy

HEAUME   Massive helmet

HEEZIE   Scottish word for a lift

HEINIE   The buttocks

HOAGIE   Long sandwich

HOODIA   African plant whose sap suppresses appetite

HOOLIE   Lively party

HOOPOE   Alternative spelling of HOOPOO

ORIHOU   Small New Zealand tree

TAIAHA  Long-handled Maori club with a sharp tip

TAIHOA   To hold on or wait (Maori)

TAUHOU   New Zealand bird. Also called silvereye

Answers to A Grade Challenge

There is a 3rd anagram of HARMONIC and CHOIRMAN. It finishes with H and stretches out to the left-hand Triple Word Score:

OMNIARCH   Almighty ruler

ACHROMIC   Having no colour

AMPHORIC   Describing the sound of blowing into a bottle

MAHZORIM   Jewish prayer book

The last two are anagrams:

APHORISM   Concise statement of the truth

MORPHIAS   Painkilling drugs derived from opium

Happy Scrabbling

Patrick