LANGUAGE ON VACATION

Recreational linguistics (since and except for the crossword puzzle) have a ""current low estate"" and this ""Olio of Orthological Oddities"" should serve as a corrective; it should also create a responsiveness to words and help you to produce new words (at last, a vindication of Kirkus-ese). Borgmann's collection of palindromes, reversals, transposals, anagrams and antigrams, word and letter patterns, puzzles, and some which apply advanced arithmetical progressions (try the googolplex) is a great deal of fun to peruse or pursue further; it is also much more comprehensive than Friend's Words: Tricks & Traditions (1957) or Joseph Shipley's Word Games For Play and Power (1962). Intellectual busy work which is fine entertainment.