I come from a family of confirmed logophiles. We play Scrabble at family reunions and do an annual puzzle based of the meanings of obscure words. (Did you know that embolalia is the use of... um... virtually meaningless filler words, phrases, or... er... stammerings (or so-called hesitation-forms) in speech, whether as... uh... unconscious utterings while arranging one's thoughts or as... like... a vacuous, inexpressive... you know... mannerism.) This manifested itself in the expected form: Books everywhere.
But, it also took some rather interesting forms. My sister, The Other One, took to playing Scrabble online when none of us could play with her as much as she'd like. That turned into just about an addiction, which gave rise to the expression in my family: "Scrabble is the new heroin." Yeah, she played Scrabble a lot.
I'm never became nearly as addicted to Scrabble as The Other One, but if you ever want to develop Super Anagram powers, I suggest hanging out with a Scrabble junkie.
But, this week, a friend introduced me to the game Bananagrams. It's like Scrabble, only without the board, and your goal is to use all the tiles before anyone else. It's an awesome game, and possibly my new ... well, I'm going to make the drug comparison, but it's actually that addictive.
And, as it turns out, I know some serious weird words. At least, I've been told their weird. (I, for the record, maintain that ell is a perfectly reasonable word.) Well, long live the logophiles. :D
What forms, other than a love of writing, has your logophilia taken? Any Scrabble junkies present?
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I've been through Scrabble rehab. Well not really, but it is the only game where I can best my husband. As a result, he won't play with me anymore :(.
ReplyDeleteI've found that my friends don't like me so much when I start with my oral storytelling. It seems I use words that no one else has ever heard of. One friend finally admitted, they don't like talking to me when I really get going because they don't understand me. Oh woe is me. I thought everyone read the dictionary for fun.
ReplyDeleteI love Scrabble. When my family gets together, we play it. I also love crossword puzzles.
ReplyDeleteI have never played Scrabble. the game in my seventh grade class was missing pieces. It looks confusing to me.
ReplyDeleteBut on a non-confusing note,I tagged you on my blog!
I love Scrabble! We used to have Scrabble competitions where I worked. I was pretty good, but there was one guy who always beat me.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm still bitter about that.
My mom's a Scrabble junkie. She always wanted to play it, I liked Monopoly so much I can't even look at it to this day.
ReplyDeleteLast night I was reading The DaVinci Code and he mentions that from the word "planets" you can derive 92 other words. So of course I had to try. I got 103. Dan Brown, what does he know? So much for his intensely researched novels:)
Ooh, Scrabble and Boggle and Pop Culture Trivial Pursuit (wait, that doesn't fit, but you get the idea). I love games!
ReplyDeleteHa! love the title of this post :D And, yes - scrabble, boggle, balderdash...any word game will do for a fix.
ReplyDeleteDreamstate -- You can convert the neighborhood kids to Scrabble, then you'll have lots of people to play with. (Wow, in that one sentence, I had about a page's worth of schemes start in my head.)
ReplyDeletePiedmont -- I've been there. I think it comes down to the fact that some words are good to know and fun to think about but do not have much of a place in conversation. (koinonia, for example.)
Susan -- Yay, Scrabble Players. :)
Tamara -- Don't worry, it's not so confusing. Thanks for the tag. :)
Stephanie -- It's okay. My sister takes Scrabble that seriously, too.
Karen -- You've owned Dan Brown. Congrats. :)
LnL -- Pop Culture Trivial Pursuit is also awesome.
Tess -- Thanks. :)