How to Beek in Glory

If the national craze for Scrabble has done nothing else, it has proved to many an American that he has a wonky (feeble) vocabulary. Confronted by too many x's or z's, he is apt to be a coof (blockhead), and left with an excess of vowels, he can appear downright dowf (stupid). Last week help came from the colleges, in the form of a special lexicon called What's That Word? (The Times Press, Wakefield, R.I.; 40-c-). Compiled by two veteran theme correctors--Martha Wright of the University of Massachusetts and Tony Hofford of the University of Rhode Island--the lexicon is not only a handbook on how to dow (prosper) at Scrabble; it is also a treasury of oddments to be mastered in a gliff (instant).

To keep the lexicon manageable, Teachers Wright and Hofford have included only words with five letters or less, and though many are of foreign origin (e.g., baht, the monetary unit of Siam; alif, the first letter of the Arabian alphabet), most are eminently usable in the U.S. Botanists and biologists may already know about corms (short, bulblike stems) and wekas (flightless New Zealand wading birds).

But the ordinary citizen will hardly be familiar with zarfs (cuplike stands for small coffee cups), yauds (work horses) or vugs (small rock cavities), and he may also be surprised to learn that a varus man is bowlegged, that an od is a theoretical force, that a peri is a type of elf.

Lexicographers Hofford and Wright have also included a vocabulary in re- verse: groups of words listed by their last letters. The a's, for instance, run from ba (the soul of man in ancient Egypt) to zamia (a cycadaceous plant). The i's have such useful quickies as ai (a three-toed sloth), li (Chinese unit of measure), obi (a Japanese sash worn with a kimono) and tui (a parson bird).

As teachers of English (and veteran scrabblers), Authors Wright and Hofford hope that their lexicon will do more than make their readers champions in the game. It should also be a boon to pavid people who cark about being mokes but would like to beek in glory.

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