Friends of mine are addicted (okay, maybe not clinically) to playing Scrabble and such word games on their computers and other techie devices. Games can get you into a flow state where time stops, and maybe that's why I find myself spending way more time than I want to when I play.

Or perhaps when I peck for grain like an experimental pigeon, I'm not good enough to get the intermittent reinforcement I would need to keep me going.

Regardless, as a word-lover, I appreciate the new book Is That a Word? From AA to ZZZ, the Weird and Wonderful Language of Scrabble (R), by David Bukszpan. It's more than a dictionary or list of words to memorize. The way it's arranged by categories should make it easier to recall the words when next you play. And there are lots of surprises.

7 Surprise Playable Prefixes:

beliquor: to drench in liquor

bethink: to mull over

beshrew: to put a curse upon

beblood: to make bloody

bepimple: to cover with pimples

befinger: to touch all over

bekiss: to kiss all over

6 More Prefix Oddities:

bediaper: to decorate with a repeated diamond design

debride: to surgically remove dead tissue

outgas: to remove gas from

deair: to take air out of

bedunce: to cause to look stupid

disbud: to prune buds from

3 Words Like They Sound:

fremd: strange, foreign

furfur: dandruff

smaze: a combination of smog and haze

6 4-Letter Words with 3 Vowels:

alae: wings

emeu: an emu

etui: an ornamental case

ilea: the terminal portions of small intestines

naoi: ancient temples

obia: a form of sorcery practiced in the Caribbean

Read an excerpt here.

If you've switched to electronic versions (and can stop playing long enough), recycle your little wood tiles into one of these creative craft projects.

Copyright (2013) by Susan K. Perry