The Wonderful World of Words

Each year in mid-November, the Mohonk Mountain House, a stunningly beautiful resort in New Paltz, NY, presents “The Wonderful World of Words,” a weekend of puzzles and interesting lectures about words and linguistics. The event was run for years by Will Shortz, but recently he handed the mantle over to Greg Pliska — and Greg, who each weekend would create a puzzle hunt for the event, has handed that privilege over to me.

And so on top of talks from The Wall Street Journal‘s language maven Ben Zimmer and linguistic journalist Arika Okrent, attendees will get to solve “mo-HONK!”, a new puzzle hunt by yours truly. I gave a talk of my own at the event years ago, and I’m very excited that I now get to return.