Word maestro at play: restodmarwaylpota!

On my home computer I have this program called WordZap, described by its makers as "An Addictionary Game." It is that. My wife and toddler wish to destroy the game, or, failing that, the computer. I need a twelve-step program.

The game starts. In the left half of the screen you see two tiers of four blank squares, and below them a single rectangle with the word "Ready?"; in the right half, seven tiers of five blank blocks. Using the mouse, you move the cursor to "Ready," click once, and the left-hand tiers instantly fill up with letters. You click on one after another of these letters, which then appear in the right-hand tiers, starting at the bottom. If you make a real word--i.e., one that the game allows--you start on the next tier.

You move fast because meantime an invisible opponent is also making words (though you can't see them till the game is over). I picture the enemy as an ugly green Cookie Monster with sixteen fingers. Once in a while, following rules I don't grasp, the monster "zaps" one of your hard-won words; once in a longer while, one of your words "zaps" one of his, hers, or its. If you fill out the seventh or top tier first, the screen says: "Congratulations! You won"' Otherwise, it says: "Sorry, you lost." It is programmed to be sincere.

Scoffers will say the game is too easy because it allows three-letter words, unlike the syndicated version of Scrabble, which you can't win unless you descramble at least a couple of five seven-letter jumbles. Ah, but Scrabble's rules allow twenty minutes and can't be enforced; WordZap is over, win or lose, no appeal, in as little as forty-five seconds--though it slows down when there just aren't that many possible words in the letters it gives you.

Is it fun? It makes you taut. After a while my left shoulder aches. My eyes water. Bills don't get paid. I don't want to answer the phone, eat, go to the head or bed. The toddler knocks unavailingly on the door. Cocktail hour can break the spell, but I can always bring a drink back to the Game.

Are there benefits? Possibly. My prose style can lean to polysyllabificationism; focusing on three- to five-letter words resists the trend. (For proof, study this piece.) My fingers are getting more agile. I train my head to recall helpful tricks to make quickest use of the letters offered. For example, I see myself in a poker game, where I opt to top the pot; or I am riding in a car driven by Pat, who is dozing off: an apt moment to tap Pat. I look around; my study is dusty. This item takes a mere mite of time. Hate is a form of heat. Heat what and it will thaw. Stop me! (Note: stop = post.)

The Game makes you think deeply about the flaws of English. William Safire says there are 650,000 words in the language. It's not enough; not when you're stuck at the sixth tier, you know the Cookie Monster is gaining, and you can't put together another word. You could win if you could click out the word yowk, a useful term to be yelled at your spouse to warn in a syllable of a unique and complex situation--the toddler is about to fall off the kitchen table. Hearing yowk!, the spouse can leap before looking.

Another word asking to be born is feksch, an adjective expressing the whole gamut of emotions felt by a committed smoker who finds him/herself out of cigarettes two minutes after all the stores close for the night and there's a Notebook to be written. Sheepish can't cut it: too long, doesn't begin to convey the intensity of self-contempt for one's addiction, or of the rage over forgetting to feed it, or of the desperate yearning for some nice poisonous tar and nicotine. We need this word, if only to save space and beat the Game.

Along with pain, WordZap provides small pleasures. Win four or five games in a row, and the screen says, "You have been promoted to Word Ace!" A few more, and you are a "Word Hero!" Win some tough ones and you may even be a "Word Maestro! " This grants me courage to enter editorial discussions here in the office; the others at the table may be younger, smarter, better read, and harder working, but they are not certified Word Maestros.

And one can play games with the Game. I dream of the day when I press "Ready?" and these letters appear:

LIMB

AUGH

I will respond: UGH, BUM, LUG, BAH, HUM, BUG, and, finally (seventh word), LAUGH. This gives me a Rush.