Word Nerd: Dispatches from the Games, Grammar, and Geek Underground - Hardcover

Williams, the first and only executive director of the National Scrabble Association, joyfully and enthusiastically recounts his unlikely 25-year tenure as the official national spokesman for the world-famous word game. ...Casual gamers will find this light read to be a fun escape, while avid grammarians and fellow word nerds will devour it in a single sitting.

For Scrabble fans--and they are everywhere, young and old, male and female--this walk down memory lane with the former National Scrabble Association (NSA) executive director is informative, funny, anecdotal, and bittersweet.... [A]ficionados will treasure this book for its appendixes: 'offensive' words; short Q, J, X, and Z words; 'Important Vowel Dumps' and more.--Eloise Kinney

For twenty-five years, John Williams oversaw the passionate eccentrics, petty controversies, corporate battles, and linguistic genius that make SCRABBLE one of America's quirkiest and most compelling subcultures. He's got some great stories to tell--the fight over dirty words is a doozy--and I'm glad he's telling them.--Stefan Fatsis, author of Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive SCRABBLE Players

Word Nerd is full of insights and stories about SCRABBLE(R) from John Williams's unique perspective as former head of the National SCRABBLE Association. Informative, eye-opening, often funny. Word nerds everywhere will eat this up.--Will Shortz, crossword editor, New York Times

Beginning his career on a lark as a freelance contributor to SCRABBLE(r) News, John D. Williams Jr. fell down a rabbit hole inhabited by gamers, geeks, and the grammar police. Having served as executive director of the National SCRABBLE(r) Association for twenty-five years, Williams now takes readers inside the byzantine, dog-eat-dog world of top tournament players, creating a piquant (sevenletter word, 68 points!) work that is part pop-cultural history, part anthropological fieldwork. Whether reminiscing about past national champions (the highest recorded SCRABBLE(r) score is 830), helpfully providing a list of offensive words once banned from SCRABBLE(r), opining on the number of vowelless words that are allowable (cmw for Welsh deep-walled basin, or nth for the ultimate degree), noting how long it takes a word to get into the SCRABBLE(r) dictionary, or why there remain more male than female champions, Williams has created a memorable work that will fascinate both amateurs and seasoned experts al