Words at Play Although wordplay has a long and rich history, writing an annual report or senior thesis can form a strong association in our minds between words and toil; we can easily come to think of them as widgets, often produced under pressure, as in, “I need to crank out 500 words by 5:00 p.m.” We lose sight of the fact that juxtaposing 26 letters in infinite combinations to generate meaning is a fundamentally creative process that lends itself as much to play as to work. Devotees of Jane Austen may recall a scene in Emma that revolves around unscrambling letters to [...]