With Buffalo and Watertown  snowed-in disaster areas, and national commissions bemoaning students’ incompetency in writing, and universities re-establishing programs for doctors of rhetoric as an antidote; as February drops six more inches of snow in your own front yard and you await some word from five dinner guests somewhere out there on the Long Island Expressway; as you look at the table set for 10 and visions of Miss Haversham and her lost expectations hover in the back of your mind, just how do you while away the time?”

            Well, you get out a dictionary and play at being lexicographers, or harmless drudges, as Samuel Johnson would say. Any number can play, though more than five seems a good number. One player serves as editor and the others play as definition writers.

            The editor thumbs through the dictionary and finds a word he thinks none of the players might know. All players must be honest here or the game will not work. Each player writes the unfamiliar word on his slip of paper and writes a definition for it. The editor writes on his slip the actual definition. The object of the game is to write a definition which the other players will guess is the actual meaning of the word. The slips are then collected by the editor and read aloud so that each player can choose the correct definition. With a little practice, players get quite proficient at writing definitions, and unsuspected imaginations and associations of sound with meaning make choosing the correct definition or eliminating the inept ones surprisingly difficult. The result is sometimes hilarious and confounding. Those players who choose the correct definition get one point and those whose original definitions are chosen as the correct ones get two points. Keeping score, however, seems unimportant after a while, for the selection process provides the fun.

            Here are a couple of rounds that might result from playing the game. Which one would you choose as the correct definition? If you know the word, of course, restrain yourself, for the word would not be used in your game.

A. ramus: 1) a liquid obtained from sassafras oil or the like used in perfume, flavoring, and the manufacture of soap. 2)a branch, as of a plant, vein, or bone. 3) one of a number of celestial objects, from 4 to 10 billion light years distant. 4) a holy man, especially a monk. B.  schnorrer: 1) a carpenter’s tool used to make grooves in wood, an awl. 2) one who breathes during sleep with hoarse or harsh sounds; from the German “schnorren.” 3) a projecting spout as of a bellows or a hose that releases water under pressure. 4) a person who seeks aid from another without justification; sponger.  C. pluvial: 1) a chronic condition of the skin caused by an eruptive disease, as acne or small pox. 2) of or pertaining to rain, especially much rain; rainy. 3) the bud of the ascending axis of a plant while still in the embryo. 4) of or pertaining to a perpetual smile, especially of political candidates.

Well, there you are. How did you fare as a harmless drudge? After a few rounds, you should be better able to cope with the snow or whatever incompetence had plagued you before.

                       Bill Reynolds