An open letter to the makers of Pathwords

Dear Zynga,

First of all, I would like to thank you for recognizing the following as words AND for placing the letters that comprise them on the board so frequently so that I never have to settle for a score of less than 700: Qua, pix, wab, mog, tun, ged, taj, dit, mig, tad, fon, ain, joe, sae, bap, rin, pax, tau and hol.

No matter how poorly I might play the game, these little-known three-letter gems have been life-savers. It doesn't bother me a BIT that I don't know what they mean and have never used them in casual conversation.

But I have a few bones to pick with you. Wab is apparently the Scottish word for "web," and ged is the Scottish word for "any fish of the pike family." Ain is also a Scottish word, although I'll give you the fact that Sting once used it in a song he released, which I have sung along to before.

But I think it's only fair to say that if you're accepting Scottish words in play, YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY ACCEPT ALL THE ENGLISH ONES, TOO. Including null, which is an actual word -- as in "null and void" -- but which you refuse to accept as such, no matter how many times I try to use it. You accept sae, which is defined as the abbreviation for "self-addressed envelope," and tae, as in "Tae Kwon Do," but you won't accept null, which -- again -- is an actual word. REALLY, PATHWORDS?

There are a few other words that appear in the English dictionary that I'd love for you to recognize, among them: rit, ren, tim, roy and tid.

Because even though they're obscure, they're still in the dictionary, and they come up on the PW board often enough that I bang my head against that particular wall a few times a day. And while you're at it, if you're adding words to your reportoire, go ahead and add tix, because if you'll accept pix, you have to take tix -- which is in the dictionary.

There are just a few others I'd love for you to recognize as Real Words, because you seem dead set on spewing them out together on a Very Regular Basis. They are:

- Lig, as in shorthand for Ligature

- Rav, as in the Toyota Rav4

- Vin, as in the French word for wine (you already do Scottish, remember?)

- Vut, as in the way I would pronounce "foot" if I were attempting it with a German accent

Furthermore, it would be GREAT if you'd also add majal, because, even though it isn't in the dictionary, you accept taj, so to not accept majal is just confusing. And FOR THE LOVE, why do you accept cig but not sig? Because I can't keep straight in my mind which one you allow, so every time sig comes up on the board, I faithfully type it in and hit Enter, only to be denied. Annoying. I do the same thing with cate and kate. I don't know why you take one and not the other, but it's sending me to an early grave.

Thank you for your consideration.