Scrabble Update

Scrabble records are amazing. Guess what score a guy got with the word "quixotry?" Okay, okay, I'll tell you: 365. During the same game the carpenter who set this record also set the 830 point game record

Check out this article for a harrowing blow by blow of the game and the controversy around the amateur competitor who set these records in 2006 with a couple lucky "triple-triples" and a 239 point word like "flatfish."

The Fine Art of Making Up Scrabble Words

In the cut-throat world of Scrabble competition, having an edge on the competition can be the difference between spelling success and spelling failure. This edge can be gained one of two ways (not both):

1. By acquiring a large vocabulary.

2. By making up words and their definitions so adroitly that the other players accept them without protest.

Now I prefer the second method. The reasons are these: Acquiring a large vocabulary can take years of study; a typical Scrabble game does not. Also, the letters available may simply not fit the pattern of any known word. This is where the advantages of the second method may be seen: whatever letters are available can be used to create the words ex nihilo. (if you don't know what ex nihilo means just make up a definition that makes sense with the rest of the sentence, that's what I do when I see Latin phrases.) The few tips that follow on how to validate newly minted words can help you when your word is challenged by another player.

First, when challenged it is often good to ask the challenging player, with just a hint of shocked surprise in one's voice, if they have really never heard the word before. This will put them on the defensive and leave them wondering how they could have missed learning this word in 5^th grade vocabulary class. Then it is best to use the word in a sentence since using a word in a sentence immediately lends credibility to it. Sometimes this example is enough to quiet dissent since many people don't like to show their ignorance about something so seemingly self-evident.

Take, for example, one of my favorite Scrabble words: pinaforte (pronounced: pin-a-for-TAY). “You've never heard of a person's pinaforte bursting amid a multi-colored cloud of feathers?” If they continue to assert that they haven't, you should begin patiently explaining that a pinaforte is a large purse or handbag used by nobility during the Renaissance as a symbol of status. They were made by sewing together the feathers of brightly-colored birds, but sometimes the threads would break and the feathers separate from one another with an effect somewhat similar to a pillow bursting during a pillow-fight. Of course, you can make the description as elaborate as time and your audience allows by adding details of how the purses were lined with burlap so the feather ends wouldn't poke through or how the popularity of these bags contributed to feather mites infesting humans and the subsequent practice of both men and women of shaving their legs in an effort to get rid of the little bugs. This explains all those paintings of an effeminate king Louis with shaved legs. All of these little details make the word sound more authentic and usually your work is done.

If, however, your fellow players still resist the idea, and demand to see it in the dictionary you should be quick to lay hold of the dictionary before them. This will give you the chance of, first, complaining that the dictionary is a highly abridged American version that could hardly be expected to contain obsolete words of European origin; and second, you can begin looking up the word's “roots.” Looking up a word's “roots” can be one of the most difficult parts of the whole affair and could make or break it. The worst problem to be encountered is if your word has no likely “roots” in the dictionary and you must simply claim that, like the word “Google,” it just came into being around the year __A.D. when it was first recorded in the anonymous Medieval “Codex Deceivius.”

Luckily, with a word like “pinaforte” there are two easily imagined “roots:” “pina” and “forte.” “Pina” conjures up images of pineapples which are colorful and so could easily be compared to colorful South American bird feathers like those used to decorate the pinaforte bags. However, since South America wasn't discovered till after the Renaissance setting of the earlier definition you gave, it is best to dig a little deeper for a more convincing “root.” Quickly scanning the dictionary you notice that a “pinnacle” is part of a fortress or battlement. People put valuable things in a fortress; people also put valuable things in a purse. But better yet, you notice that the Latin root “pinna” actually means a feather. The word is bomb-proof now. All that is required is to show how “forte” (meaning strong or powerful) can apply to either the strong influence a person with a big purse can have or the metaphorical sense in which having a lot of money makes one feel safer as if one were protected by a “strong battlement,” the literal meaning of the two roots “pinna” and “forte.”

Of course, having made these “discoveries” you could go on ad nauseam (yep, means just what it sounds like) about the word's earlier meanings in ancient architecture dealing with castle fortifications, etc. But the case is made sufficiently for the other players to accept the word “pinaforte” as legitimate and return to the game. Any newly minted word can be handled in this way and such a lengthy argument as above may not always be necessary. Another favorite word of mine, “streth,” may need no more than to be used in a sentence to validate it. To “streth oneself with worry” is literally to “wear oneself ragged” with worry. Or again, to “streth one's mouth” is literally to wear it dry and hoarse with an overabundance of talk.

Well, I've almost strethed my fingertips to the bone from all this typing, so I think I'll leave the rest up to you. Next time you pack up your pinaforte bag for the trip over to a Scrabble tournament, be sure to carry with you these important tips about getting that winning edge. Let your next Scrabble game spell success.

Music: Sing or Listen?

“Does God intend us to merely listen to music--or to sing ourselves?

Theologian T.M. Moore answers this question in an article he wrote for BreakPoint Online called “Whatever Happened to Singing?” Its curious, Moore writes, that Scripture gives us no specific guidance in how to listen to music. Music, according to the Bible, is not the spectator sport we have made it to be. Instead, we find many commands to sing.” --Chuck Colson (1)

“But if we look at the progress of our scientific civilization we see a gradual increase everywhere of the specialist over the popular function. Once men sang together round a table in chorus; now one man sings alone, for the absurd reason that he can sing better. If scientific civilization goes on (which is most improbable) only one man will laugh, because he can laugh better than the rest.” --G.K. Chesterton (2)

So should we sing more and listen less? It's an interesting idea I thought I'd pass along. Approaching the subject from a secular and somewhat different angle, Allan Bloom has this harsh criticism to add:

“As long as they have the Walkman [ipod!] on, they cannot hear what the great tradition has to say. And, after its prolonged use, when they take it off, they find they are deaf.” (3)

The developed argument for singing more can be found at http://www.breakpoint.org/features-columns/archive/1067-whatever-happened-to-singing. I'm not saying listening to music is wrong or saying ipods should be burned, but even on the surface it is obvious that half-listening while preoccupied engages neither the mind nor the emotions; it stirs neither man's reason nor his passions.

(1) Chuck Colson http://www.breakpoint.org/commentaries/11759-how-good-it-is-to-thank-the-lord

(2) As quoted in Thomas C. Peters, The Christan Imagination: G.K. Chesterton on the Arts. San Franscisco, Ignatius Press, 2000. pg. 89-90

(3) Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind, New York. A Touchstone Book, Simon and Schuster inc. 1988. pg. 81.

"Sorry, We're Closing"

As readers of this blog know, I occasionally venture to read something of a higher intellectual calibre than trashy 19th century novels. When this happens I am often pleasantly satisfied with how I have used my reading hours. When I bought The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom for 20 cents and began reading it I had this pleasant feeling. The Closing of the American Mind gives an overview of the philosophies and ideas that have influenced modern American intellectual life. Such influences as Marxism, Freudianism, egalitarianism, and democracy, among others, are all mentioned for their role in shaping education and the current thought processes in academia.

From the very beginning my pencil was streaking across the pages, trying to preserve in this way all the best thoughts and ideas. Looking back, I see that my system of underlining has a serious problem: too much of the book has been underlined for any sort of quick reference to be effective. Nevertheless I scanned back through the first 80 pages and saw a host of excellent quotes, just a few of which I couldn't resist copying here. The next 300 pages will have to wait for another time.

“History and the study of cultures do not teach or prove that values or cultures are relative” (39).

“To deny the possibility of knowing good and bad is to suppress true openness” (40).

“No longer is there a hope that there are great wise men in other places and times who can reveal the truth about life.... The point is to propagandize acceptance of different ways, and indifference to their real content is as good a means as any. It was not necessarily the best of times in America when Catholics and Protestant were suspicious of and hated one another; but at least they were taking their beliefs seriously” (34-35).

The dreariness of the family's spiritual landscape passes belief... The delicate fabric of the civilization into which the successive generations are woven has unraveled, and children are raised, not educated... The parents must have knowledge of what has happened in the past, and the prescriptions for what ought to be, in order to resist the philistinism or the wickedness of the present. Ritual and ceremony are now often said to be necessary for the family, and they are now lacking. The family, however, has to be a sacred unity believing in the permanence of what it teaches, if its ritual and ceremony are to express and transmit the wonder of the moral law” (57).

“The moral education that is today supposed to be the great responsibility of the family cannot exist if it cannot present to the imagination of the young a vision of a moral cosmos and of the rewards and punishments for good and evil, sublime speeches that accompany and interpret deeds, protagonists and antagonists in the drama of moral choice” (60).

“What poor substitutes for real diversity are the rainbows of dyed hair and other external differences that tell the observer nothing about what is inside” (64).

"Lack of education simply results in students' seeking for enlightenment wherever it is readily available, without being able to distinguish between the sublime and trash, insight and propaganda” (64).

“The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency—the belief that the here and now is all there is” (64).

“Students have powerful images of what a perfect body is and pursue it incessantly. But deprived of literary guidance, they no longer have any image of a perfect soul, and hence do not long to have one. They do not even imagine that there is such a thing” (67).

Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind, New York. A Touchstone Book, Simon and Schuster inc. 1988

Some Reflections On Bad Writing and Imperfect Churches

The artistic black and gilt designs flowing over the green cover of a volume published in 1869, led more than anything to my reading of Westbrook Parsonage. This appalling Christian romance novel by Harriet B. McKeever confirms the old warning not to judge a book by its cover. The writing was atrocious.

The ho-hum story follows the entire history of a family at Westbrook Parsonage. The plot (if it had one; I don't remember) was boring. I don't usually disparage writing styles—one monkey should not deride another monkey's fleas—but this was painful to read. Here is a specimen of the author's abrupt, present tense style (if style it can be called):

“Warren is impetuous and self-willed, daring in his nature... He is standing at the gate, with Alice, his darling pet: she is a beautiful child, with deep blue eyes, and a profusion of golden curls; she is a sparkling little girl, very fond of brother Warren, who is proud of his lovely sister.”

Imagine an entire book that goes on like that. The world would be a better place if some of those punctuation marks were omitted, a few periods substituted, and lastly, a wholesale alteration of tense and syntax were effected. The character's conversations are little better. They too are abrupt and and contain none of that small talk expected in a normal exchange. Take this artist's rendering of a typical dialogue:

Question. (Serious and troubled).

Answer. (Compassionate and fatherly).

Reply. (Relieved and at peace).

End of conversation. As can be seen, such dialogues are short and to the point.

As if this defect in writing were not enough, the heated defense of protestantism is enough to make one cringe. While it claims to defend Protestant freedom from Roman Catholic ritualism, what it really does is defend one type of ritualism from another type. I was rolling with laughter when one of the heroines asked where such popish formality was to be found—no, not in the Bible—in the Book of Common Prayer! After thus repeatedly invoking the authority of the Book of Common Prayer and Protestant church tradition (not Biblical tradition), I lost all remaining respect for the book.

Why did I waste time reading the entire thing? I have no idea. Sadistic curiosity I suppose. But here is the thing, this author, unknowingly, is a very great teacher. Looking at a long forgotten doctrinal conflict about ritual from a 150 years away can shed light on the dubious traditions of our own churches. McKeever has her fictional characters react to the obviously unspiritual practices of her time but is strangely blinded to her own extra-biblical additions to the faith. It is worth pondering what there is in our Christianity that is merely inanity and not Christ. Even though it looks different from 19^th century ritual, we are not exempt from extra-biblical tradition either. We may take pride in boasting we are not like Rome or like the unknowingly hypocritical characters in a 19^th century didactic novel, but have we really reached the true core of God-centered spirituality? We peal away and discard those things that it eventually becomes clear are absurd, but underneath? Like Eustuce the-boy-turned-dragon of C.S.Lewis's Narnia story, we may peal off dragon skin after dragon skin only to find a smaller version of the same dragon underneath. Only with the help of Aslan is it possible to get down to the real boy within and discard the heavy exterior that only gets in the way. But beware, his claws are sharp, and his clause is that we obey only him.

“See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.” Col. 2:8

Between Heaven and Hell

The fictional dialogue is an ancient way of conveying hard topics in a reader-friendly way. Plato placed Socrates in conversation with other philosophers of ancient Greece and the literary technique of the Socratic Dialogue was born. The imitators of Plato have been holding little chats ever since. The most recent writer to come to my attention who has found the fictional Socratic Dialogue to be useful is Peter Kreeft. His book, Between Heaven and Hell, brings together John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis, and Aldous Huxley for what the subtitle explains is “A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death.”

The setting for such a dialog makes use of the remarkable death of all three men on the same day in 1963. Kreeft lifts the curtain on the dialogue with one of the dead men asking: “Where the Hell are we?” This initial question may not be answered satisfactorily for each of the three men but, because it is a question that many still on earth have asked, it is a relevant starting point for a philosophical dialog of interest to both the living and (in this case) the dead. The three speakers soon move on to other questions; questions about knowledge, truth, and, ultimately, the truth of Jesus' divinity.

Proving the divinity of Jesus, the core of the Christian apologetic, is Kreeft's goal and, despite some important detours, the dialog constantly returns to this pivotal point. Once prove that Jesus is God and all other questions are answered. Kreeft has the character of Lewis call it,

“the skeleton key principle: it opens all other doctrinal doors.”

Kennedy: “You mean once you believe that, anything goes?”

Lewis: “No, anything he [Jesus] says goes” (35).

In the argument for the divinity of Jesus, Kreeft extensively develops Lewis's famous “lier, lunatic, or Lord” argument. He shows that the ubiquitous “good moral teacher” idea cannot apply to a lier or a lunatic. Because Jesus claimed to be God (and was crucified for this very reason) the only conclusion we can draw is aut deus aut homo malus: “either God or a bad man” (37-38). Clearly, those who crucified him thought he was a blasphemous bad man. Is anyone really willing to go that far today? But Kreeft and Lewis point out that the only alternative is to accept what he called himself: the Great I AM, God.

PS. Normally I spell “dialogue” with a “ue” ending but I have noticed that “dialog” is very common. Imagine the time before dictionaries when nearly every word could be spelled (spelt) at the whim of the individual author! In facsimile copies of old books published long before the time of Webster or Johnson I have seen the same word spelled two different ways on the very same page. There is a sort of horror at this lack of rules but also a certain empowering freedom in this variability. I've indulged myself in this post by using both spellings. (Actually, I heard somewhere that the variations in spelling, particularly the extra “e” on the end of some words was added by old-time typesetters so that the right-hand margin would look straight.)

Peter Kreeft, Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death With john F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis, and Aldous Huxley. InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois. 1982.

The Search for a Soul

“Were I asked, what is a fairytale? I should reply, read Undine: that is a fairytale.... and of all fairytales I know, I think Undine the most beautiful.” --George MacDonald (23)

Naturally, when I read this in George MacDonald's essay "The Fantastic Imagination," I knew that I would have to read this “most beautiful” of fairytales. "The Fantastic Imagination" is MacDonald's attempt to say a little bit about what a fairytale ought to be. Not what a fairytale is, for that task is too difficult; as MacDonald says: “I should as soon think of describing the abstract human face, or stating what must go to constitute a human being. A fairytale is just a fairytale, as a face is just a face” (23).

Since a fairytale is so hard to describe, MacDonald directs his readers to the lengthy tale of Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouquee. I googled it and read its entire 55 pages at Project Gutenberg. If you plan to read it there you need not read any further here since what follows is just a short summary of some of the important highlights of the tale.

A wandering knight, bewildered by a fierce storm, stumbles upon a fisherman's cottage where he meets the young and beautiful Undine. The fisherman explains that his foster-daughter mysteriously appeared at his cottage years before when she was a toddler. The truth of the matter is that Undine is a water-nymph in human form seeking a soul. She learns that only by loving a mortal can she gain the soul that no water-spirit has. Needless to say, she comes to love the knight and they are soon married. “Through love Undine had won a soul, which is indeed the gift of God to every mortal” (25).

But this is not the end of the story. Undine's powerful uncle Kuhleborn does all he can to destroy her love and make her return to her watery home. In an eerie parallel to the Prince of the Power of the Air, Kuhleborn says of himself: “I am free as the wild birds of the air to go hither and thither as I will” (30). He laughs mockingly when Undine cries out that, “I no longer wish to have aught to do with you!” (30) Rather than going away, he plagues Undine and the knight Huldbrand more fiercely. On top of all their other trials the lady Bertalda begins to drive Undine and the knight apart. Finally, at the instigation of Kuhleborn, the knight breaks his promise to his wife and speaks harshly to Undine. At this, Undine must leave him and return to her ocean home. “There will I live, loving, sorrowing, for into the depths of the blue sea will I carry my new-won soul” (28).

The knight sees too late his error and only at his own death, when Undine's tears fall so heavily on his heart that it breaks, does he realizes that "he had never loved any one in all the wide world as he loved Undine" (53). The wild water-nymph who found a soul when she found love and who always tried to protect her knight in life, melted into a stream at his grave while it was said by the villagers that, “the little crystal stream, was none other than Undine, poor forsaken Undine, who thus surrounds and protects Huldbrand, her beloved” (55).

Friedrich de la Motte Fouquee. Undine. Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=240839&pageno=1

George MacDonald. "The Fantastic Imagination." The Gifts of the Child Christ: Fairytales and Stories for the Childlike. ed. Glenn Edward Sadler. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 1973.