Beginning his career on a lark as a freelance contributor to SCRABBLE
News, John D. Williams fell down a rabbit hole inhabited by gamers,
geeks, and the grammar police. For twenty-five years, as the executive
director of the National SCRABBLE Association, Williams served as the
official spokesperson for the game, and as the middleman between legions
of fanatical word-game fans and the official brand. Now Word Nerd takes
readers inside the byzantine, dog-eat-dog world of top tournament
players, creating a piquant (seven-letter word, 68 points!) work that is
part pop-cultural history, part anthropological study. Indeed, what
Christopher Guest did for the world of dog shows in his film Best in
Show, Williams does for the world of competitive word games in this
funny and perfectly observed memoir.As readers will discover, Word Nerd
explores anagrams, palindromes, the highest-scoring SCRABBLE plays of
all time, the birth of the World SCRABBLE Championship, as well as many
of the more colorful figures that inhabit this subculture. Die-hard word
fans will find invaluable tips on how top players see their boards and
racks to come up with the best play, how they prepare, and the
psychology of tournament competition. Those uninitiated in the mysteries
of SCRABBLE mania will find a delightful, madcap memoir about all the
fun people have with language and how words shape our lives and culture
in unexpected ways.Whether reminiscing about past national champions,
detailing the controversy over efforts to purge the Official SCRABBLE
Players Dictionary of all offensive words, opining on the number of
vowelless words that are allowable (cmw for a Welsh deep-walled basin or
nth for the ultimate degree), noting how long it takes a word to get
into a dictionary, or explaining why there remain more male than female
champions, Williams crafts a loving tribute to words and the games
people play with them. Word Nerd will fascinate both amateurs and
seasoned experts alike.
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