Oh, the games people play.
Word games, anyway.
Becky and I are devoted word game players. Our morning is not complete without coffee and working the Word Jumble in the virtual newspaper. Evenings will find us sitting next to each other as we prepare to puzzle out the New York Times Wordle app on my device. Together we come up with a five-letter word and then proceed to narrow down our guesses to come up with that day’s answer.
We also do crossword puzzles together. One of us will individually start filling in a grid. Inevitably the original player gets stuck, and then the one hands it over to the other. We are a puzzle tag team. Over the years, playing word games has become a satisfying feature of our routine as a couple.
As they say: The couple that puzzles together nuzzles together. Well, even if no one actually says that it’s a saying that might apply to us.
I thought about our enjoyment of word-game playing when I happened upon a recent news item. Apparently, MSNBC political commentator Rachel Maddow was reacting to Ohio Senator J.D.Vance being chosen as the Republican Vice-President candidate. She said something I thought was curious.
Now, I don’t watch MSNBC for the same reasons I don’t watch Fox News. One: I believe bias in news reporting is always tough to avoid, but these two flip sides of the same cable news-reporting coin seem to relish their unashamedly partisan take on politics. Two: Every news item no matter how far afield from politics, somehow becomes an example of some dire political situation. Three: Becky and I don’t get these channels on our TV. Four: Becky and I often spend our evenings working puzzles.
So in this particular broadcast, Maddow was complaining about how “far-right and alt-right figures” often reference The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. It is a thing that very rich venture capitalists often do, by her telling. She was particularly incensed by the name Senator Vance had given his venture capital firm: “He called it Narya. N-A-R-Y-A, which you can remember because it is ‘Aryan’ but you move the N to the front.”
She goes on to explain “Apparently the word has to do with elves and rings from the Lord of The Ring Series.” What she doesn’t say but I assume she is implying is that “Aryan” is also a word used to denote non-Jewish, white, blue-eyed northern Europeans that Hitler and the Nazis considered the “Master Race.”
It is curious to me. Is Maddow suggesting that rearranging letters in a word gives us clues to discerning J. D. Vance’s radical politics? Could this be a valid way to think about and develop one’s political opinions?
Well, as a lover of word games, I decided to rearrange the letters in the name “Rachel Maddow.”
From the drawer I retrieved the bags of tiles we use to figure out the Daily Jumble and placed R-A-C-H-E-L M-A-D-D-O-W on the kitchen table. My method is to look for small words. I try string the words and letters into something that sort of makes sense.
“AH, MAD RED COWL” and “MAD RED COWL—HA” came pretty quickly. Not sure if I can get any insights into a person’s personality with these results, but maybe it’s like a Rorschach test where you project your own personality traits.
I found “CHARD MEADOW” which could mean a field of leafy greens. Unfortunately, I was left with an extra L, so any diagnosis might be off.
I finally went with “HOWLED C DRAMA” letting the C stand for “Cable.” I think this might be a fair description of many cable news shows.
This is a fun word game. It’s not too hard, and any word or name will work. In fact, it might be even more fun if you avoided political words altogether.
Norman Knight, a retired Clark-Pleasant Middle School teacher, writes this weekly column for the Daily Journal. Send comments to [email protected].
