Series 2 Episode 1 of The Penteract Podcast, hosted by Anthony Etherin. In this episode, Anthony meets Wall Street Journal lexicographer Ben Zimmer and Word Wars director Eric Chaikin. Together, Ben and Eric operate Beyond Wordplay, a platform dedicated to the art, science, and culture of words. Topics of conversation include the National Puzzler’s League; Scrabble and crossword tournaments; palindromes, anagrams, letter banks and lipograms; computational wordplay; lexicography; and the wordle phenomenon. Visit Beyond Wordplay here. Listen to episodes of The Penteract Podcast on YouTube, and please consider subscribing to Anthony’s channel. Follow this podcast on Twitter and discover more about Penteract Press by visiting our website and our Twitter. And, if you like what you hear, please support this series via Anthony’s Patreon page! Support the show (http://patreon.com/Anthony_Etherin)