"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words . . . " Well, they'll do no physical damage perhaps, but they can certainly cause some mental torment, anxious moments and furrowed brows.
And varying configurations of the alphabet were certainly at the centre of things at the fifth annual Irish Scrabble Championship in Dublin at the weekend.
It's Sunday afternoon, it's the penultimate round and Mr Brendan McDonnell from Dublin is in the lead, by 132 points.
"He pulled out in front some time yesterday," says the championship organiser, Ms Anne Lyng, "and it looks like he's unassailable."
If he wins he will go on to represent Ireland at the world championships in Melbourne in November.
Thirty-four competitors have come to Dublin for the weekend championship, the first to include Northern Ireland.
They have made the trip from Belfast, Limerick, Cork, Wexford and Kinsale as well as from Dublin. They play 12 games each, of 50 minutes each, clocking up points from their word-scores as they go.
Most play the mathematical word-game - invented by an out-of-work American engineer, Alfred Butt, about 50 years ago - at least once a week. Ms Lyng often plays three times a week. "It's an addiction," she confides. "It's just a fabulous game. I have always been fascinated by crosswords."
And so say the other 33 with a jiggle of their letter-piece bags. Round 12 is under way and Mr McDonnell has been drawn for the play-off against Ms Eileen Meghan, from Dublin.
Over 17 tables they hunch. If any is in doubt about a word their adversary conjures up, Ms Fiona Clengham is in dictionary corner with her Official Scrabble Words, or the truth according to scrabble. A runner collects the disputed word, on a piece of paper held aloft by the player. She brings it back to Ms Clengham, who checks it.
She's getting a few strange ones. "Qi", "otarine" and "toeiest" are passed, though "doon", "sia" and "goaders" are rejected.
While we await the final score, anxious competitors gather in the kitchen for tea and Kimberlies. Ms Chris Broderick is "just knackered".
"When it's intense and serious like this, it's mentally exhausting," she says. Except for Mr McDonnell, however, they say it's all over. He's off to Melbourne in November, where, competing against the world's top scrabblers, he'll need all the qi he can muster.
