[1][3][5] A. Ross Eckler Jr., a statistician at Bell Labs, became editor until 2006,[3][5] when he was succeeded by Jeremiah Farrell (Butler University).

[3][7] Lying "on the midpoint of a spectrum from popular magazine to scholarly journal",[5] it publishes articles on various linguistic oddities and creative use of language.

This includes research into and demonstrations of anagrams, pangrams, lipograms, tautonyms, univocalics, word ladders, palindromes[8] and unusually long words,[4][5][9][10][11] as well as book reviews, literature surveys, investigations into questionable logological claims, puzzles and quizzes, mnemonics[12] and a small measure of linguistically oriented fiction.

[9][14][15][16] The first of these included complete subscription details for Word Ways, which generated so many inquiries that for decades the publishers were reluctant to change their address.

[17] In the November 2020 issue, editor Jeremiah Farrell announced that the publication of Word Ways would be suspended, but will hopefully resume in the future.