Word Play

This book isn’t like the other books I’ve posted on book worming. Instead of there being a story, it teaches you about lots of different aspects of the English Language. For example, one of the chapters talks about lipograms. A lipogram is where a book, or a paragraph, or a nursery rhyme doesn’t include a particular letter. For example, in the book Brandreth rewrites an exert from the Twelfth Night without the letters l and o.

“If music be desire’s sustenance, make music yet;
Give me excessive music, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken and thus die…”

Who knew what a lipogram was? I certainly didn’t before I read this book. He also has another chapter where he talks about tongue twisters. Here are a few good ones to try: Three free thugs set three thugs three. That bloke’s back brake-block broke. The two-toed tree toad tried to tread where the three-toed tree toad trod.

One of my personal favourite chapters is called double bubble. Double Bubble is a game Brandreth sometimes plays. You have to go through the alphabet and think about a word which has two of those letters. For example, for a you could do baa. For b you could do ebb and so on. You then carry on like that. Once you get to four letters, you won’t be able to do a full list. Some of my particular favourite words in this game are: qawiqsaqq. Qawiqsaqq is the name of a particular bluff in Alaska. Another one is hexahydroxycyclohexane. Hexahydroxycyclohexane is a chemical, a member of the vitamin B complex, which is essential for life. It also talks about collective nouns and much more!

If you are a logophile (someone who loves words) then this is the perfect book for you. I would recommend it for people ages 12+. This book would also definitely be suitable for adults.

If you decide to get this book, I hope you enjoy it and learn more about the English Language.

By Chloë Willoughby