Words at Play: Quips, Quirks & Oddities

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for the word-fun-atic. Very entertaining.
Review: I like to call myself a word-fun-atic. I like rhyming, tongue twisters, puns, puzzles with words, and generally anything that turns a rather complex language into a new twist, perhaps with wacky spoonerisms (one of my favorites) or various teasers to think about on the drive to work. Lots of great word squares that boggle the mind to imagine even attempting to construct. The book is certainly recommended for those starting to read and eager to learn about the language or just have fun reading to the older folks who have some time to sit down to a page turner with an interesting subject.

Rating:
Summary: Send your brain to Disneyland.
Review: Words at play arrived at 6 p.m. Dinner burned at 7, dessert melted at 8, and we--my wife and I--were still grinning and laughing at 9. This is like taking your brain to Disneyland and letting it loose to play.

The Anagram and Palindrome chapters-yes, chapters-are worth the price of admission. But there are also pages of real and imagined definitions, historical and hysterical quotes, and some of the funniest mistranslations, blunders, and misunderstandings one can imagine.

And I haven't even reached the puzzles at the end of the book. Tons of puzzles, patterns, and ingenious devices.

You will at last know positively that Sam Goldwyn never delivered his most famous line, "Include me out." The citations are clear, and when a source is in doubt, the doubt is explained.

This is the perfect bedside book. No, it isn't. You'd never get to sleep with this in your hands. This is the perfect breakfast table book-a way to jolt your brain into a laugh each day.

This book is not, however, for the cherophobic. In fact, if that word scares you, it is not for you, either, you phobologophobic, you.

Rating:
Summary: Other Reviews
Review: Wordsworth: the Magazine for the P.C. User; Ted Clarke, Cornwall, England, editor and publisher ([e-mail]), Jan. 1999 issue:

This first book by O.V. Michaelsen is certain to be a must for logololepts such as yours truly and will enrapture anyone who is captivated by a love of words (logophilia).

It is a veritable mine of historical information on the subject of wordplay. The author has dug deep into the archives to unearth details of anecdotes, word puzzles, quotations, etc., way back into the 14th century and beyond. It contains a fantastic collection of lists; there are 42 pages devoted to each of the subjects "Anagrams" and "Palindromes" and, more to my liking, 46 pages dealing with "Word Squares" and other "Form Puzzles." I was particularly pleased to see the authorships of some of the wordsquares, with their dates going back more than a century. I had sought the meaning of the word METI for years. It appears in this book, in the 1860 palindromic wordsquare based on anagrams of TIME. There it is, on page 168--METI.

It also gave a new word, so far as I was aware, to rhyme with "orange." It is "Blorenge"--the name of a 1,833ft. hill near Abergavenny (Wales).

Its 22 chapters contain a wealth of rib-tickling funny names, oxymora, and quotations in a well-presented, easy-to-read layout.

Words at Play represents really good value for money.

Word Ways: the Journal of Recreational Linguistics; review by Ross Eckler (author of Making the Alphabet Dance), editor and publisher, Aug. 1998 issue:

The title of this marvelous book by O.V. Michaelsen echoes C. C. Bombaugh's 19th-century classic, Oddities and Curiosities of Words and Literature. Like the earlier work, it consists of brief examples of a large number of logological curiosa, with great emphasis on the classics: palindromes, anagrams and forms (mini-crosswords of various shapes).

Michaelsen spent several years mining the puzzle literature, from the century-old British periodical Notes & Queries to a myriad of columns from 19th-century newspapers and privately-printed puzzle journals. He updated this historic material with such hot-off-the-press results as Chris Long's computer-generated word squares and a 1997 NPR competition for word-unit palindromes.

Appendices give the pseudonyms of hundreds of members of the National Puzzlers' League, plus the names and publication dates of scores of periodicals and columns.

This 240-page paperback should be on every logologist's shelf!

At the Crossroads.com; review by puzzle constructor Mary B. (Mary Brindamour, a.k.a. Luv), Aug. 1998 issue:

What a delightful experience to go through this book! Everything is so clearly presented and informative and yet concise and easy to read. My favorite areas are mainly Reversals and Palindromes, as well as Forms. It sure was surprising to find such a long list of reversals and their pals used in so many ways. The forms, I found incredible, also; especially since they were done as far back as the last century. To be sure, once the book is opened, it holds one's interest and is almost impossible to put down. It is too enjoyable to stash away on a bookshelf, so I intend to keep it handy and in plain sight, knowing that whenever I pick it up, there will be something new to interest me.