Euphemakems and Such:
ARMOUR, RICHARD
Euphemakems and Such Playing with Words. By Joseph T. Shipley. Prentice-Hall. 1S6 pp. $3.50. Reviewed by Richard Armour Professor of English, Scripps College; author, "The Classics...
...Shipley comes up with a Greek word from one of Aristophanes' comedies that contains 179 letters and makes the others look like monosyllables...
...Author of such tomes as the Dictionary of Word Origins, Shipley here carries his learning lightly, but his explanations and illustrations range widely...
...You may be disabused of some long-held notion—for example, that "honorificabilitudinitatibus" or "antidisestablishmentarianism" are the longest words known...
...But he puts a new twist on them and comes up with some fresh and amusing examples...
...Shipley explains these complex word games with admirable clarity...
...Perhaps feeling sorry for us, or our guests, drama critic Joseph T. Shipley has prepared an entertaining book on entertaining to fill the gap...
...But the chances are you will want to try a few of these games, perhaps some weekend when the TV set breaks down and you cannot get hold of a repairman until Monday...
...A bright child can understand most of the games...
...Far beyond the ordinary, however, are such games as autantonyms, irreversibles, homonymbles, doubletones, middletakes, slygrams, rhymoriginals, alphawords, buried words, cap me, and— a bit of word play itself—euphemakem...
...indeed, a nimble-minded youngster with a good memory might be a tough opponent for the average adult...
...In this do-it-yourself volume he suggests scores of word games and while describing them instructs the reader in the resources and oddities of language...
...Whether or not you wish to play any of these word games with your family or friends, you nonetheless will be entertained and enlightened by reading Shipley's book...
...Similarly, he brings in some amusing and fascinating information about the wordtwisting, intentional or accidental, involved in the Spoonerism, the Bull, the Goldwynner, and the Wellerism (after Dickens's Sam Weiler...
...author, "The Classics Reclassified" There comes a time during many evenings at home when the stock of small talk is used up, and maybe the stock of liquor too...
...Before discussing the game of limericksaw, for instance, he provides us with a capsule history of the limerick and quotes some rare examples...
...You may even become so intrigued that you won't bother to light up the gray-green screen ever again...
...Some of Shipley's word games are familiar—charades, spelling bees, 20 questions, anagrams and conundrums...
...Shipley is also a scholar with an impressive knowledge of semantics, verse forms and the history of the English language...
Vol. 44 • March 1961 • No. 11
