Hi Jan, I really appreciate your linq gems! This one pointed me to another solution that, I hope, you and your blog readers could like. It is similar to the value tuple you mentioned: Using the new keyword to create an anonymous type in a let clause: var query = from word in testWords let entry = new { word, usage = wordUsage.TryGetValue(word, out var u) ? u : 0, } orderby entry.usage select (entry.word, entry.usage); Or maybe you can directly do: //[...] select entry; to use the whole anonymous object as a result.