In Praise of Word Games

Boggle, Wordle, Quiddler, Oh My!

Last week I had the great good fortune to spend several days at the beach with three of my very best girlfriends. Is there anything better than the beach with the girls? One of the things that we did was play our favorite word game- Quiddler. This got me to thinking about the various phases of word games in my life.

In the early part of my career, I worked at SAIL Magazine and every day at lunch my colleague and I would play Boggle. If you don’t know or remember this game, it involves shaking a box full of letters into a grid and then finding as many words as you can find. I think we actually played for money. High rollers we were at a penny a point. That is a measure of our fierce competitive spirit. This went on for many months.

Later, like so many others, I got on the Words with Friends bandwagon. Sadly, I found it a bit bruising to my english major ego. I had several friends who consistently CRUSHED me. So I finally gave it up with my humility mostly intact.

Then came Wordle. On most days I still do Wordle. They say that playing games like this are good for an aging brain so I’m all in. I also enjoy Connections from the New York Times although there are days when I am quite annoyed at the ridiculous combinations that they come up with. I find Wordle to be a quick hit of fun word play to start the day and most days I do pretty well.

And then there is my all time favorite word game- Quiddler. This is a card game/word game created by Set Enterprises, whoever they are. It combines elements of Scrabble and Gin Rummy and is a fabulous game for two to six players. We have introduced this game to many friends and are cheered to know that many of them still play on occasion. My girlfriends on my beach get-away are my most ardent Quiddler playing friends. We can’t get enough of it. We play at the beach, at the ski house, whenever and wherever we can. We know the profile of all of our Quiddler competitors. My son, Dewey, is a champion. My husband, Michael, who has even been known to play with me while on road trips, is agonizingly slow. All I can say about that is that’s kind of how he rolls. My friend Annie loves speed Quiddler, the faster we can play, the better. My friend JB is a fountain of knowledge on virtually any subject so is also a very strong player. When my beloved a cappella group would be on the road for gigs, we would often play. I recommend not playing with Sherry until you have some solid skills.

Several years ago, I made the tactical error to give a book to both Annie and JB called 101 Two Letter Words. You’d be shocked to know how many two letter words begin with the letter “A”.

Here’s the list- AA, AB, AD, AE, AG, AH, AI,AL, AM, AN, AS, AT, AW, AX, AY. Who knew? The book is a delight with a short poem on each page alongside each word. Here’s an example, for the word- EX.

“Sometimes one feel frisky,

and one wants to sex one’s ex,

Best to try it first with a Tyrannosaurus rex.”

What is it about this game that I love so much? You can get through a game pretty quickly if you put your mind to it and don’t invite my husband to play. You learn new words along the way. Sometimes we are heartless and won’t give an inch if someone makes a gaffe. Other times, we are more forgiving and embrace the “Education Quiddler” approach. I usually prefer that philosophy. I mean there’s enough back-stabbing, competitive shenanigans in the world already, am I right?

So here’s to more games with words. Some night soon, I recommend making a homemade ZA and breaking out the Quiddler.

From 101 Two Letter Words-

So Ma and Pa pick at their ZA

With faces grim and stony,

Ma munches on crunchy crust,

and Pa on pepperoni.