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David Bukszpan
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Is That a Word?: From AA to ZZZ, the Weird and Wonderful Language of SCRABBLE Kindle Edition

by David Bukszpan (Author), Dave Hopkins (Illustrator) Format: Kindle Edition
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 126 ratings
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This “fresh, amusing, 21st-century guide to everything Scrabble” is chock full of game history, trivia, and peculiar, game-winning words (Will Shortz).

Scrabble® aficionados may know that both “Brr” and “Brrr” are legitimate plays, but what about everyday names like Peter, Carl, and Marge? They’re not listed as proper nouns, but they are certainly playable. For lovers of Scrabble®, Bananagrams®, and Words with Friends®, this lively guide helps readers get the most out of word games.

Is That a Word? is packed with new ways to remember the best words alongside tips for improving game play and much more. Part strategy guide and part celebration of all things wordy, this collection of facts, tips, and surprising lists of playable words will instruct and delight the letterati.
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    260 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Chronicle Books LLC
  5. Publication date
    July 13, 2012
  6. File size
    4808 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Not Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Guides and manuals tend to be grim, charmless things. But not this one! If you consider SCRABBLE (and/or its digital knockoffs) a small key pillar of modern civilization--or even just an intellectually nutritious way of killing time with friends and family--why wouldn't you immediately buy a book as smart and literate and companionable as the game you love to play?" -Kurt Andersen, host of Studio 360

"A fresh, amusing, 21st-century guide to everything Scrabble." -Will Shortz, crossword editor, New York Times, and puzzlemaster, NPR

"Bukszpan makes learning some of the Scrabblish basics a lot of fun." -CNET

"It's more than a dictionary or list of words to memorize. The way it's arranged by categories should make it easier to recall the words when next you play. And there are lots of surprises." -Psychology Today

"Bukszpan begins with a well-researched history of the origins and evolution of Scrabble and then moves on to discuss words that can be used when playing the game. While admitting that the official Scrabble dictionary is the final authority, the author provides some unusual words and their backgrounds. The illustrations are few but are quaint and antique looking, as in old pen-and-ink sketches. The book describes mutations of the game as well as records that have been set and includes useful lists, curious facts, and a Scrabblish dictionary."-School Library Journal

From the Back Cover

Za. Cwm. Alaska. Laura. Juba. Qi. Magneto. Rousseau. Tsktsk.What do these words have in common?Knowing them will help you master the board in games from SCRABBLE to Words With Friends and beyond.Part strategy guide, part celebration of all things wordy, Is That a Word? explores the often bizarre-but totally playable-words in the SCRABBLE dictionary. Combining tips, tricks, facts, word lists, and more, each page helps take an obsession with word games to the next level.Is That a Word? is your ticket to total word domination.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B008MYBJHY
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Chronicle Books LLC (July 13, 2012)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 13, 2012
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4808 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 260 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 126 ratings

About the author

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David Bukszpan

David Bukszpan

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Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
126 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

DragonWing
5.0 out of 5 stars A lot of fun
Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2015
Verified Purchase
The author goes through a list of the more egregious words in the Scrabble dictionary and provides their definitions. It's a lot of fun. I know lots of people simply learn the words but don't care what they mean. I on the other hand want to memorize not only the entire Scrabble dictionary word list, but also what each word means. This book is a good starting point for word nerds...or as I prefer to call us, word birds - raptors set to pounce on the appropriate word at the appropriate time when the tile gods bless us...
6 people found this helpful
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C. Collins
4.0 out of 5 stars is that a word
Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2014
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A helpful and interesting book to assist with scrabble and words with friends. Maybe I will have a chance of winning for a change!
One person found this helpful
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Carl Reagan Walker
5.0 out of 5 stars Fun and Useful
Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2021
Verified Purchase
This book is full of interesting and funny collections of weird words that can be used in Scrabble. My favorite so far is words with 3 or more vowels. This is not a dictionary but does have many unusual words for each letter of the alphabet. A fun read.
One person found this helpful
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B.O.B.
3.0 out of 5 stars Fun but Weirdly Organized
Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2012
Verified Purchase
He points out some interesting iterations of Scrabble but I'm more interested in the words, not the rules of various games of Scrabble. I would have loved a list of weird words (alphabetically) and their meanings.
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Daniel P. Smith
2.0 out of 5 stars I liked Part 1, 25% "The Story of Scrabble and Beyond." Not the rest. Also, published in 2012, it's out of date.
Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2015
Verified Purchase
To begin with, to point out the obvious, the book was published in 2012 and thus does not cover anything in or about the Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary, Fifth Edition, published a year ago in August, 2014.

I bought this as a $1.99 "deal," and when I'd read the first part of it, I emailed a friend saying "I think you'd like this, grab it at the bargain price." Now I feel as if I gave her a bum steer. Everyone likes different things, of course, but I think it's a shame that Amazon doesn't give a "Look Inside the Book" on this one. You really need to decide whether you are interested in the last 3/4 of the book.

The first part, Part 1, "The Story of Scrabble and Beyond," amounts to 25% of the book. I liked it. It has a lot of information on game history, history of the rival word lists and dictionaries. It has interesting observations, comments, and criticism of the word choices and definitions in "The Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary." It has some interesting records--words with maximum possible scores and such--and historical curiosa ("the lowest winning score ever is currently held by Helena Gauthier, who bet her opponent -9 to -11.")

Part 2 of the book is nothing more than Bukszpan's compilations of themed groups of what he thinks are interesting Scrabble words. Yiddish Scrabble words, Scrabble words that are synonyms for "ghosts," Scrabble words that are names for different kinds of wind, and on and on and on and on and on. I was not charmed by his efforts to string some of these word collections together to give amusing usage examples: "At the next [Scrabble] table is some schlemiel who's schlepped his schlock in with him," etc.

Part 3 of the book is really just more of the same. Instead of themed collections, he presents examples of what he calls "scrabblish," which are simply very densely packed sentences that seek to contain very high percentages of unusual Scrabble words: "Ae blae kae with twae alae hae nae wae if it leks well."

So, 1/4 of the book is about Scrabble itself, and related games. I liked it. The rest is a lightly facetious presentation of perhaps two or three thousand unusual Scrabble words. Is it valuable to serious players seeking to improve their game? I don't know. I suspect not, because in Scrabble nobody cares if you know the definitions, and many of these words are rather long and would be difficult to use in play.
6 people found this helpful
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KMZ
5.0 out of 5 stars Be sure and read the introduction!
Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2022
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Very witty! I can relate to many of his comments! Love this book!
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Petunia's Mom
5.0 out of 5 stars That's NOT a Word!!!!!
Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2013
Verified Purchase
Love this book for the word ideas. When we play scrabble and boggle I just need a strange word for the challenge. I have a collection of word books, ( because I seem to have no memory) and this one will really be fun because of the oddity of the words. Great Fun!!
6 people found this helpful
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paula
4.0 out of 5 stars I was a little disappointed at the arrangement of information
Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2018
Verified Purchase
I was a little disappointed at the arrangement of information. It is not straight forward. However, there is a lot of interesting ways to tackle the task of maximum points from a hodge-podge of 7 angry fighting letters! I was intrigued enough to purchase another one as a gift for my long time Scrabble partner/challenger.
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Unusual book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 3, 2015
Verified Purchase
Excellent and fascinating. Would recommend to scrabble players and the like.
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Kenny Mac
2.0 out of 5 stars Not CSW12
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 30, 2013
Verified Purchase
If you are a Scrabble Player outside of North America then this book is not much cop as it refers to the wrong dictionary.
eg Page 112: " The most likely 7 letter draw is OTARINE (NOTAIRE); sadly this rack doesn't offer any 7 letter bonuses ... the best thing to do is actually pass".
One person found this helpful
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