Sentences Are Commutative, Words Are Not

While playing Scrabble^® on my phone today, I had a rack with following letters:

AABEILN

Near the top of the board was TAVERNA, and it was possible to hook above the first six letters or below the first two letters. There were other spaces on the board to place words, but this was clearly the most fertile. The full board looked like this:

On my rack, the letters weren’t in alphabetical order (as above), so I missed a seven-letter word that would have garnered 78 points. Instead, I played ABLE for a paltry 13 points.

After my turn, the Teacher feature showed me the word I should have played:

ABELIAN

Kickin’ myself. I’ll get over not seeing BANAL, LANAI, or even LEV. But how does a math guy miss ABELIAN? I would not put up a fight if someone wanted to rescind my Math Dorkdom membership card.

What loves letters and commutes?
An abelian Scrabble player.

(That’s a joke. Please don’t play Scrabble while driving.)