I am reading Dialogues of the Dead, by Reginald Hill (2001, Avon Books). It was also titled (perhaps in the UK edition) Paranomania! The flyleaf contains this excerpt from the OED (2d edition):

paranomania [Factitious word derived from a conflation of PARANOMASIA [L. a. Gr.---I don't have the alphabet] Word-play + MANIA (see quot. 1823)]
1. A clinical obsession with word games.
1760George, Lord LYTTELTON Dialogues of the Dead: No XXXV BACON: Is not yon fellow lying there Shakespeare, the scribbler? Why looks he so pale? GALEN: Aye, sir, 'tis he. A very pretty case of paronomania. Since coming here he has resolved a cryptogram in his plays which proves that you wrote them, since when he has not spoken word.
1823Ld. BYRON Don Juan Canto xviii
So paronomastic are his miscellanea, Hood's doctors fear he'll die of paronomania. 1927HAL DILLINGER Through the Mind-Maze. A Casebook So advanced was Mr. X's paronomania that he attempted to kill his wife because of a message he claimed to have received via a cryptic clue in the Washington Post crossword.
2.The proprietary name of a board game for two players using tiles imprinted with letters to form words. Points are scored partly by addition of the numeric values accorded to each letter, but also as a result of certain relationships of sound and meaning between the words. All languages transcribable in Latin script may be used under certain variable rules.
1976Skulker Magazine, Vol. 1 No. iv Though the aficionados of Paronomania contested the annual Championships with all their customary enthusiasm, ferocity and skill, the complex and esoteric nature of the game makes it unlikely that it will ever be degraded to the status of a national sport.

......What a fun word, eh? Could have been another name for this site.

It would have been a great name for this place. I have never liked the name Wordcraft...but it's probably too late to change it now.

I don't understand why they sometimes have different book titles in the UK and US (such as with Quinion's book). I bet we'd be able to understand any cultural nuances. And I sure like Paranomania better than Dialogues of the Dead.

quote:

It was also titled (perhaps in the UK edition) Paranomania!

Paranomania! doesn't seem to be its British title. I found it at Amazon UK under the "Dialogues of the Dead" name. A search for "Paranomania" only brought up some book in German. In any case, don't you USAns spell the word "dialogs"?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: arnie,

quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
don't you USAns spell the word "dialogs"?

Only when we're being lazy!

quote:

don't you USAns spell the word "dialogs"?

Never. And we dialogue and have dialogues and use that word a whole lot...especially in academia.

I, too, thought that Webster had changed all "ogue" words to "og". Catalog and analog just for two examples.

The dictionaries seem to describe the -og variant as "Amer. and Computing". I can understand, though dislike, the computing use - it saves two bits (computing term, not money) which was probably useful in the early days.

the book appears to have been titled
Dialogues of the Dead or Paronomania!
in the Delacorte Press (British?) edition.

now, FYI and FWIW:

the worthless word for the day is: paronomania

[coined by Reginald Hill, after paronomasia]
a clinical obsession with word games

sometimes a person will go to great lengths in coining a
new word; take this word, for instance — on the flyleaf
of Dialogues of the Dead, Reginald Hill provided the
following fiction of an OED entry, complete with quotes
from Lyttelton, Byron and Hal Dillinger:
paronomania [Factitious word derived from a conflation
of PARONOMASIA [L. a. Gr. paronomasia ] Word-play
+ MANIA (see quot. 1823)]
1. A clinical obsession with word games.
2. The proprietary name of a board game for two players
using tiles imprinted with letters to form words.
OED (2nd Edition)

"And was his attempt to read something significant into
these name changes merely a symptom of his own personal
paronomania?"
- Reginald Hill, Dialogues of the Dead (2001)

"Anthropophagous. Charley loves such words. We still play
Paronomania, you know, despite the painful memories it
must bring him."
- Reginald Hill, Death's Jest-Book (2003)

The British hardcover edition by Delacorte Press doesn't seem to include Paronomania in the title either. See Amazon UK. At least, it's not on the dust cover; it may be on the flyleaf.

Strange word. Paronomasia < Greek παρονομασια (paronomasia) < παρονομαζειν 'to call by a different name' = παρα (para) 'beside' + ονομαζειν (onomazein) 'to name, call'. The suffix -mania < Greek μανια (mania) 'madness'. I'm sure Byron knew it was a bogus reanalysis when he penned it.)

on the title page of the Delacorte Press (New York) edition:

Dialogues of the Dead
or
PARONOMANIA!
an Aged Worm for Wept Royals
a Worm Doge for Top Lawyers
a WORD GAME for TWO PLAYERS