Making the Alphabet Dance: Recreational Wordplay

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Summary: The Fabulous Book of Letterplay: A Masterpiece
Review: Ross Eckler has synthesized 30 years of developments in the field of wordplay in a single, scrupulously organized volume. To accompalish such a task must have required a Herculean effort of mental strength! He coined the term "letterplay" to distinguish it as written wordplay involving, for the most part, the combinatorial effects achieved by manipulation of the letters of the alphabet. The best-known types of letterplay serve as a starting point--anagrams and palindromes--that lead to the twilight zone of language where the alphabet dances like a mysterious diva, showing words as they're rarely seen. In fact, Eckler has edited Word Ways magazine ever since 1970, the magazine that ushered in what many believe is the Golden Age of Wordplay. More wordplay has appeared in English in the past 30 years than in any language in the history of the written word. To "read all about it," buy this indispensible book! There is none like it, and there will never be another like it. Eckler knows all, and tells all!

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Summary: A wonderful book, second only to Borgmann's classic LOV.
Review: Ross Eckler's latest book on wordplay is destined to become a milestone in recreational linguistics. It is second only to Dmitri Borgmann's 1965 classic Language on Vacation. Eckler's offering should bring recreational linguistics (or wordplay, or logology) to a whole new generation of word enthusiasts. Great, great, great

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Summary: lots of information, lots of errors
Review: The book addresses letter and word play in such breadth as to command authority. The frequency of errors in its examples and tables, however, gives an opposite impression. I soon found myself playing a different game than any described in the text: looking for errors. (For example, a lipogram supposedly lacking the letter H contains the word "the"; another supposedly lacking the letter A contains the word "day" (p. 4). At least 3 of 100 purported palindromes on pp. 32-4 are not quite: "Tense I 'snap' Sharon's roses, or Norah's pansies net"; "Evil is the name of a foeman as I live"; "Stephen, my lad--ah, what a hymn, eh, pets?") I found 11 in the first 50 pages, and I would not be surprised if I missed some. Then I quit: it was less challenging than most of the play described in the book.