As the cliché goes, the subject for this entry was ripped from the headlines. Okay, headlines from central and western Maine…but headlines nonetheless.
The article linked to above about a Scrabble tournament to raise money for a non-profit outfit that helps folk battle illiteracy reminded me of a ceditra entry I wrote two years ago. My random method of generating topics to write about (by itself, “random” scores nine points in Scrabble) pointed me to the dictionary, which is appropriate because that is where most beginning Scrabble players head off to also.
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April 5, 2010
From Page 453 of the Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English, my method of ceditra (the process of creating art through any random process – a term coined by early 20th century Brazilian artist Abril Pajyaso) landed me on this word:
levigate – v.tr: 1) reduce to a fine smooth powder; 2) make a smooth paste of
In all honesty, I can say I have never seen nor heard this word.
I’m sure my mother-in-law has because she loves to play Scrabble. As much as I like to play games and work on puzzles, I must admit that the tiled board game from Hasbro has never quite had much of an allure for me. It would seem natural that I would gravitate towards a game that stresses a knowledge of vocabulary.
Yet, I don’t really care for the game.
This ambivalence even predates my marriage so I can’t blame my blasé attitude towards Scrabble on my mother-in-law since she always beats me soundly.
Part of my lack of interest in Scrabble may lie in the fact that I can’t recall my parents ever playing this game. We played backgammon and Rummy Q and Mom even taught me how to play gin (and Dad taught me how to drink it – rimshot). I can’t recall us breaking out the Scrabble board or even if we ever had one.
So if the board games one’s parents played have an impact on a child, what does our game-playing history foretell for Christopher, Jared, and Ophelia. We’ve played Life, Monopoly, Cranium Cadoo, Trivial Pursuit Junior, and Junior Apples to Apples.
My mother-in-law plays Scrabble with the boys when they visit and she trounces them also. She almost (dare I say it) levigates them.
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Form Your Troika 