Take Our Word For It Issue 203
Melanie and Mike
http://www.takeourword.com
For Mac users who have trouble with our regular homepage:
http://www.takeourword.com/indexmac.html
**Greetings**
It looks like this will be our SOP for a while: publish the new issue
on Tuesday evenings and send the companion newsletter on Wednesday
evenings. We'll try to get things synched a little better soon.
**This Week's Issue**
NOTE: The links in this newsletter are good until the next issue is
published.
In Spotlight we give you Drawing (or Drawring, if you like)
http://www.takeourword.com/current/page1.html
In Words to the Wise we bring you the following words:
ings (place-name element)
http://www.takeourword.com/current/page2.html#ings
dumpling
http://www.takeourword.com/current/page2.html#dumpling
pee
http://www.takeourword.com/current/page2.html#pee
pecan
http://www.takeourword.com/current/page2.html#pecan
In Curmudgeons' Corner Curmudgeon Malcolm Tent is almost hysterical
over historical
http://www.takeourword.com/current/page3.html
In Sez You... we hear about MENSA; Vienna bread; verbifying nouns;
adding seemingly random letters in pronunciation; Homeschool.com; and
old men
http://www.takeourword.com/current/page4.html
In Laughing Stock we bring you fanciful dog breeds
http://www.takeourword.com/current/page5.html
**Game Review**
A loyal reader, Bruce Yanoshek, recently sent us a review copy of a
word game called Plext. He is clearly very proud to be associated with
this game, and that piqued our interest in Plext. We finally got a
chance to play it, and, frankly, we enjoyed it so much that we had a
difficult time stopping!
Plext is a fairly simple game, though it may seem a bit complex on
first glance. We actually had to play it before we got a good feel for
how easy, yet challenging and fun, it actually is. We were pleasantly
surprised upon opening the game, as it is packaged nicely and
constructed of pleasing, durable materials. The box is sturdy and the
game board is not by any means flimsy. The pieces (14 letter-dice, a
sand timer, a die tray, a "round keeper pawn") are all made of strong
plastic. The game also comes with an answer pad, a game log, and even
PENCILS (nice touch!), not to mention instructions.
Don't bother with the "Quick Rules" until you've read the more detailed
description of how to play the game. We made that mistake and confused
ourselves a bit. You should read the detailed rules once and then play
a sample game while re-reading the detailed rules. After that, we
wager you'll never look at the rules/instructions again. That's how
easy it is. Yet easy does not mean slow or boring. This is a quick
game, and many rounds can be played in a relatively short amount of
time. The 14 letter-dice are "shuffled" and then placed in the die
tray, which is inverted and lifted to leave a single row of the 14
dice. Now your job is to create as FEW words as possible out of the
consecutive dice. If you can make one word out of all 14 dice, you
will be the god[dess] of Plext! You can add any letters that you wish
to make your words. For example, let's say the dice row reads as
follows: ivngmarlbkstvl (the example given in the instructions). By
adding letters where necessary, use as many of the letters on the
letter-dice (consecutively) as you can to create your word. One player
might form GIVING, MARKET, LOBBY, KICKSTAND, and VALLEY from the
example dice row. "Living", for example, is formed by adding
L[IV]I[NG]. "Market" is formed by adding [MAR]KET. "Lobby" comes from
[L]OB[B]Y, "kickstand" from [K]ICK[ST]AND, and "valley" from
[V]AL[L]EY. Note that all the letters in brackets are in the line of
dice, while those not bracketed were added.
Each player uses as many consecutive letters at a time as s/he can to
make a word from the line of dice, then makes a word out of as many of
the remaining consecutive letters, and so on. Once all players have
used all the letters in the line of dice and written down their words,
each player makes a bid based on the number of words s/he came up with.
The timer is used during the bid phase, and players may try to outbid
each other. Once time is up, players prove their bids by submitting
their words to the other players, starting with the lowest bidder. If
the first player fails to prove his or her bid, the next player (next
highest bid) gets a turn to prove his or her bids. This goes on until
a player proves all of his or her words. Players can use any words in
a standard dictionary except proper nouns, initials, abbreviations,
prefixes/suffixes, words requiring apostrophes, and words requiring
hyphens.
The two of us (Melanie and Mike) had a blast playing this game, and we
can see that it would be even more fun with more players. We recommend
this game to anyone who loves word games like Scrabble. If you are
interested, you can purchase it from Bruce Yanoshek here
https://simplyfun.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=3&products_id=36 ,
or contact Bruce directly (his e-mail is at the top right of the web
page at that link). If you have any trouble ordering the game or
contacting Bruce, let us know (we are loath to include e-mail addresses
in this newsletter since the newsletter is published on the Web and
spammers might be able to get their virtual hands on the addresses, you
may have noticed that we are).
**Laughing Stock**
Please send us material for Laughing Stock. This week's winner, Gary,
will receive a $10 gift certificate to Amazon.com. Thanks, Gary!
Previous winners, never fear, we are sending the last of the Laughing
Stock gift certificates this week.
**Curmudgeons' Corner**
Barb and Malcolm are running out of things to complain about. Really!
Help 'em out!
**Blog**
We have been fairly successful at posting rather regularly to the TOWFI
blog at http://www.takeourword.com/blog1 . Check it out, and post your
own comments or thoughts. The blog has no content police, so don't
worry about "staying on topic". The only things filtered out are
obvious spam posts, and we may censor needlessly obscene language, etc.
**T-shirt Store**
The t-shirts are still there!
**Book Store**
We have several new books to review and add to the book store. Stay
tuned! (You've heard that before, haven't you?)
Until next time,
Take Our Word For It!
Melanie and Mike
http://www.takeourword.com
http://www.takeourword.com/indexmac.html