Are you Hooked on Words? Being a writer, I am but what I'm actually asking is if you've played a game on your Smartphone or other electronic device called Hooked on Words. So I guess I should ask if you're hooked on Hooked on Words.
I have it on my iPhone and I play it when I'm waiting somewhere for a few minutes. The app shows you columns of random letters — six columns at a time, each containing seven letters. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to find words in it. Like in the illo below, you can find "ring" or "grin" or "side" or "bedtime." Your finger can go from any letter to the letter up, down or diagonal but you can't repeat the same tile in a word. As you use up letters, others drop down to fill the voids.
I usually don't play it for very long and I really don't keep score. I just give myself little challenges — like one time, I'll decide to see how many words I can find regardless of length before the nurse comes out to tell me the doctor is ready to see me. Or other times, I'll decide to take as much time as I need but to only make words of six or more letters.
Most of the time to spell a word of any length, you have to go up and down and diagonal and move around in an odd pattern. Every once in a while though, the random letter selection just gives you a nice, long word by chance.
The other day I was waiting for the doctor who's making my knees work better and I started playing, not really playing hard or concentrating. All of a sudden, I noticed that the game had by chance given me a seven-letter pattern that was very familiar, though it wasn't acceptable as a word. I immediately did a screen capture so I could preserve it and share it with you. The screen capture has been Photoshopped only to reduce the size of it. I didn't change what's in the image in any way.
Here — take a look: Ignore the word "tit" and check out the second column from the right. What are the odds of that?
