Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Language Games and Word Play

I was preparing a post on Spoonerisms and malapropisms for today, but discovered that it wasn’t scintillating enough to interest even me. I took that as a hint that I should reserve the topic for a day when I could do it justice.

Instead, I’ll alert you to the Lake Superior State University list of banished words for 2007. While I agree with a few of these, particularly the first three, the 2006 list would serve you better as a list of words used to death. If your favorite buzzword pet peeve doesn’t appear, submit it for consideration. They are working on the 2008 list already.

If you’d rather play with your words, troop over to RinkWorks and their Brain Food page. You’ll find logic puzzles, jokes, and lateral thinking puzzles. While the last may not necessarily improve your writing directly, they will help you think around plot corners and perhaps give your block-stricken writing a jump-start.

If that still doesn’t satisfy your word game yearnings, go to Adrian Hoad-Reddick’s word game menu. If that doesn’t occupy you for at least an hour before you remember that you were on your way to the store, then you must need that milk badly.


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