26^2 = ??

hardly a day goes by when I don't hear of a new word. Oftentimes it's something Truly Amusing like "meanderthal" .. but I think we should exhaust all the remaining SHORT words first. There are just way too many 2-letter words that need a loving home. (Scrabble players be damned), starting with [A] I can think of:

aa; ac; ae; af; ai; aj; ak (postal, and other abbreviations don't count); ao; ap; aq (the Arabs have taught us that we don't need a U after Q anymore); ar; au; av and az (taken: ab; ad; ag; ah; Al (proper name); am; an; as; at; aw; ax; ay)

[B] is more difficult, since all good English words must include A,E,I,O,U and sometimes Y:

ba; bo; bu (taken: be, bi)
ca, ce; ci; cu (taken: co)
da; de; di; du (taken: do)

and then we're back to a vowel [E], so more words become available:

ea; ec; ee; ef; eg; ei; ej; ek; el (Mexican pronoun); en; eo; ep; eq; es; et; eu; ev; ey; ez(taken: eb; Ed; eh (Wisconsonians); em; er; ew; ex

Once we're done with the remaining 2-letter words, we can progress to 3, then 4. After all, etymology is just way overrated.