Deckman--I know what you mean about the word games. My roommate, her sister, my boyfriend, and I are all music students in college, and when the four of us are in the same room, the word games are endless, with plays on French and Latin words as well as English, song and book titles, composer's names, anything really.

Our favorite is to take a phrase that someone else has used which is supposed to be figurative and respond as though we thought it was meant literally. It drives a lot of people crazy.

The four of us, and our music professors too, play a lot more word games than any of the English majors I know. The only group I've come across who can match musicians for playing with language are the philosophers.