Michigan League of Academic Games

Linguishtik Corner
By Rod Beard

There are many different styles of play that can make a players successful in Linguishtik. Some students are "word" players and focus on obscure words that satisfy unusual demands such as:

1. Must contain a z and double consonant: pizza
2. Collective, must contain a j: jury
3. Double consonant, double vowel: coffee or balloon

It's obviously a good strategy, because opponents who don't know the words will have to think long and hard to come up with them. I've seen players who study from words lists and know exactly which demands they want to make as soon as the shake begins. Some of the most successful players have operated this way, but the problem is that the cubes for the words will not always be there, and those players are at the mercy of the other players who call other demands.

It won't matter how good a word is if you can't figure out how to put it in an inverted sentence or within an adjective phrase. So, there are limits to the strictly "word" players who don't study much else. Certainly, it's a quick strategy to make newer players competitive, especially in Elementary and Middle. In high school, the game becomes significantly more complex with all the clauses, phrases and other intricacies. In most cases, Junior and Senior players have several years of experience and already know how to play the "word" players and have added other strategies to counter them. The best players are those who can adapt to whatever type of game is being played and have a good balance of good words and good sentences.

Last Month's Linguishtik Corner