The Oxford Guide to Word Games

Augarde, Tony

ISBN 10: 0192141449 / ISBN 13: 9780192141446

Published by Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 1984

Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good. Seller Inventory # GRP16284451

Synopsis:

Today crossword puzzle fans and other word-game addicts number in the millions, and they will welcome this charming reference book, which encompasses not just crosswords but acrostics, anagrams, Scrabble, tongue-twisters, and countless other games of verbal ingenuity. The book recounts the origins of various word games, outlines their history, describes how to play them, and discusses the many names and rules they have acquired over the years. In addition, the book is full of delightful anecdotes about famous authors and other notables who have enjoyed word games. Whether one loves riddles or chronograms, puns or Consequences, this book will be a source of endless fascination and delight. "A tidy, well-organized playground for word games with just the right blend of history, anecdote, asides and examples."--St. Petersburg Times "The ideal reference work in which to find an explanation for almost every classic word game...entertaining.--Choice "An irresistible collection of verbal ingenuity...The examples are delightful. High recommended."--Seattle Times ."Everything you want to know...about man's ageless fascination with word play."--Will Weng An irresistible collection for anyone who likes to test his or her wits with verbal acrobatics About the Author: Tony Augarde is a member of the Oxford Dictionaries Department"

Review: The newly updated Oxford Guide to Word Games, now complete with a short section on the jolly joys of text messaging, is full of such delights and splendid inconsequential fun as the fact that "synthetic cream" is an anagram of Manchester City or that "Marge lets Norah see Sharon's telegram" is a perfect palindrome. Do you know (or no) your homonyms from your heteronyms, perhaps invalid or enjoyed by invalids? Or try this tongue twister: "She was a thistle sifter and sifted thistles through a thistle sieve"

Acrostics, chronograms, spoonerisms, charades and pangrams all jostle for space in this witty and entertaining book which manages to include a history of the crossword puzzle and of Scrabble alongside how to play lexical ping-pong or how to crack a rebus such as EGNC for Aegean Sea. What is the longest word used by Shakespeare? Honorificabilitudinitatibus in Love's Labour's Lost. A Latin ablative plural, it means literally "with honourableness"; Augarde observes that "the word is also interesting for its long regular succession of alternate consonants and vowels.

Oxford Guide to Word Games manages to be pretty scholarly although it wears its learning lightly. It gathers together a lot of historical and etymological information which you'd be hard put to find anywhere else in a single volume. Anyone who has a love affair with words and their quirks needs this. So do students of English language and, of course, it's essential reading for quiz compilers everywhere. --Susan Elkin

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Oxford Guide to Word Games
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Publication Date: 1984
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Good