Thursday, June 30, 2005

Stranger Words — a Weekend with the OED?

Only in Seattle: The weekly news rag The Stranger held a contest to see who could come up with the most words that could be a noun, a verb, and an adjective, without any change in spelling. The winner, Dan Landes, came up with 314 words; second place finisher Karyna McGlynn found 243, 50 of which weren't on Landes' list. For those who care, here is "triple threat" noun-verb-adjective list:

8 comments:

Pamela Johnson Parker said...

Oh, Peter, this list is a sestina series waiting to happen.

Peter said...

Sestina words: great idea!

Patty said...

I bet you like Scrabble!

Have you read Word Freak by Stephen Fatsis, or seen the documentary Word Wars?

Peter said...

Oh I *heart* Scrabble. And yes, the Fatsis book was wonderful. Did you see the documentary Word Wars??

Patty said...

I have seen it, and enjoyed. It's very much a visual version of _Word Freak_, (Fatsis is featured in the flim.) You get to see the wonderful kooks Fatsis wrote of:
Joe Edley, Matt Graham, Marlon Hill, Joel Sherman, and others. It really captures the obsessive element of Scrabble.

There's another Scrabble documentary called Scrabylon. It came out in 2003, but I haven't seen it yet.

I am drawn to accounts of obsession, probably because I tend toward obsessive.

Scrabble was a huge obsession for awhile. I think the best online site for playing Scrabble is:

http://www.isc.ro/

Best poem about Scrabble?

David Wojahn's "Scrabble with Matthews"

http://www.poetrymagazine.org/magazine/1002/poem_30900.html

Okay, now I've gotten carried away....

Peter said...

I loved "Scrabble With Matthews." I think it was in Poetry a few years ago: about DW and WM being stuck in the airport and playing a killer game. But my friend Sharon B, who used to be Matthew's significant other, says he wasn't a scrabble player! So who knows what is real.

Pamela Johnson Parker said...

I've heard your friend Sharon read before (here in Murray, Kentucky, about 18 years ago) and have her books. She's a wonderful poet. That evening, we had a good conversation about poetry, the KingDome, and David Thompson after the reading. Or at least she talked and I rasped--I had laryngitis that evening. I've written that David Thompson poem I promised her I'd write (finally after 18 years). You're fortunate to have her as a friend.

Anonymous said...

hehe =)