Digital Commons Network^™

Half-Alphabet Nursery Rhymes, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Well, no, I can't - because no such place exists. In the Aug 1969 Word Ways I wrote "Mary Had a Lipogram" which featured her minus the letters A,E,T,H,S in turn, and as a lagniappe I wrote of her using only half the alphabet. It's time to validate these Internet claims and provide readers with such a collection. Single-letter lipograms are not of a challenge, so I have written half-alphabet ones for a variety of nursery rhymes. To keep the job from becoming inordinately difficult, I have tailored the half-alphabets to the individual stories.

Contrary Cognomina, John Holgate

Word Ways

Many of our surnames have origins in the nomenclature of trades and professions. Once upon a time Smiths were smiths, Butchers were butchers and Carpenters were carpenters. Holgate, for example, derives from the common noun tollgate. Back in the eleventh century my ancestors were rewarded for collecting tolls and swelling the royal coffers with a Norman castle in Shropshire. Nowadays a profession-based patronym does not oblige its owner to continue in the cognominal business. Just as well - I have no desire to work as a toll collector on the motorway or an assessor in the Tax Office.

Signature Puns

Word Ways

In the style of "edifice Wrecks" (Bullwinkle). "Mousey Dung" (Kliban), "You rippa dese, you menna dese!", and David Morice's presidential puns in WW92-171, here's abbrev history of the western world in the form of more or less homophonic puns and phonetic charades on famous names. This style of word play is also known as Anguish Languish and is analysed by the editor in the November 1997 Word Ways (02-276).

Orchard Words, Jeremiah Farrell

Word Ways

The orchard problem, also known as the three-planting problem in the literature, is to plant n trees so that there will be r straight rows with k trees in each row. The maximum r for various k is unknown except for certain small cases of n and k. We have constructed examples of known maximums using words which we call Orchard Words.

Colloquy

Word Ways

A collection of responses to previously published articles.

All-Diagonal 5-Squares With Simpler Words, Max Gutmann

Word Ways

It may seem that a 5-square could contain nothing but familiar words, but these 5-squares have eight words which have to fit, of which at least one must be a reversible word, and at least one a palindrome. In the case of six-squares, there was just one square with as many as 7 words (two less than the maximum) among the most used 87,000 words: in the case of five-squares, 3 squares had all 8 words in the top 87,000 (and 66 squares had just 7 words).

The "A" List, Steven Kahan

Word Ways

Each entry in the "A" list is made up of two words, names, or phrases that have at least two overlapping letters and in which each blank stands for a consonant, e.g. XAXAXAXXAX (6; 3-4) represents a six-letter word and two-part name or phrase consisting of a three-letter and a four-letter component. As asterisk denotes the word is capitalized. Since there are thirteen letters in all and only ten positions indicated, we can deduce that there is a three-letter overlap.

All-Diagonal 4-Squares With Common Words, Rex Gooch

Word Ways

This last article in the series deals with 4-letter words, which tend to be the most common in use. In the top 87,000 words, there are 5356 of four letters, including 462 reversible words and 24 palindromic words. From these, it was possible to make 5261 squares.

Word Networks On Wordlock, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Wordlock, a combination lock using words instead of numbers, were created by Todd Basche, a Silicon Valley executive. Sold by Staples for $5.98 (in blue or black) or $3.90 (in orange), it consists of five independently-rotating rings, yielding one hundred thousand different positions, any one of which the user can select. Because words are more easily remembered than numbers, he inscribed four of the rings with ten different letters each, and the fifth with nine different letters and a blank, allowing the user to pick either a four-letter or a five-letter word.

'Palindrome' Trnas-3 Deletions Revisited, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

In the August 1989 Word Ways I posed the question

Three letters can be deleted from PALINDROME to leave 120 different groups.

How many of these 120 can be rearranged to form genuine words or terms?

Reverse Engineering, Eric Harshbarger

Word Ways

Abstract unavailable.

Kickshaws

Word Ways

A collection of linguistic kickshaws.

Canine Capers, Leonard R. N. Ashley

Word Ways

Our domestic animals have given us such terms as buy a pig in a poke, let the cat out of the bag, and get one's goat. Can you (doggedly) work on the following expressions involving Man's Best Friend, some in the slang that calls a frankfurther a hot dog. Some are funny that they would make a dog laugh.

Vowel-Consonant Patterns: 10-Letter Words, Susan Thorpe

Word Ways

This is a sequel to Vowel-Consonant Patterns which covered V-C patterns in 7-, 8-, and 9- letter words (Word Ways 2002249 and 2003038).

Back Cover

Word Ways

Instructions to authors wishing to contribute to Word Ways.

Wordplay In 1929, Believe It Or Not!, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Starting in the 1920s, the column "Believe It Or Not" by Robert Ripley appeared in more than one hundred newspapers by 1930. Reading this as a boy, I was fascinated by oddities such as the English lad who died of old age before his seventh birthday, the Hindu who hung head downward for three hours at a stretch, and the girl born with a single eye in the middle of her forehead. I was also beguiled by the 210-letter word coined by monastic writers in the Middle Ages to enumerate the varieties of divination using birds, oracles, the Bible, ghosts, …

Attractive Opposites, Richard Lederer

Word Ways

Opposites attract. Opposites also attract people who love to mess around with word meanings and letters. Here's a brief logological taxonomy of 15 yin-yanging patterns.

Reversible 6-Squares, Rex Gooch

Word Ways

A reversible word square is one in which every row can be read backwards, and every column upwards. Every word must be either a reversible word such as LANRET (TERNAL in reverse) or a palindrome, which is a special kind of reversible word. In this article, the term reversible word does not include palindromes. In general, counts include valid rotations and reflections.

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to the puzzles and games contained in this issue.

Editorial

Word Ways

Thirty-seven years... hundreds of authors... thousands of articles. It's been a glorious adventure, and I've enjoyed every moment of it, but nothing lasts forever. It's time to give someone else a chance to experience these pleasures. Starting with the Feb 2007 issue, Jeremiah Farrell, an emeritus professor of mathematics at Butler University and a Word Ways author since Aug 1983, will take over the editorship with his wife Karen. I plan to continue writing Word Ways articles.

Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 39 Issue 4

Word Ways

Front cover and publication information for this issue.

Generalised Fibonacci Sums In Words, Rex Gooch

Word Ways

In the November 2004 Kickshaws, Dave Morice noted that, in the word HOW, the sum of the ordinal values of H and O equaled that of W (8+15=23); and similarly for subtraction in WHO 23-8=15.

Aerst Transposals, Jeff Grant

Word Ways

My article "Transposing Rates" in the November 1987 Word Ways has examples for 63 of the 120 possible transposals of the letters AERST. Further research has expanded the collection to 85, with many of the originals entries being improved as well. Abbreviations like ESRTA (Empire State Restaurant & Tavern Association) are excluded; however, a couple of derivatives (RTase, TASer) are listed. Names with initials, such as T.S. RAE, are omitted, as are contrived terms and purely foreign words. Due to the nature of the source (Net), some examples may be suspect.

Upwards Edge Words, Susan Thorpe

Word Ways

The letters of certain words can be made into one of a series of geometrical forms when arranged, row by row, in the order in which they occur in the word. These forms sometimes exhibit edge words which read upwards, downwards, or both. In Edge Words (WW98274), I searched for right hand and left hand edge words which read downwards.

The Great Dog Mystery, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Former Kickshaws editor Dave Silverman alluded to the Great Dog Mystery in several letters to the editor from 1972 to 1975.

"Ma Is The Measure Of All Things": A Linguistic Potpourri, Don Hauptman

Word Ways

This is it: the inevitable "desk-clearing" article of miscellanea and ephemera that didn't fit elsewhere.

Punk Whiz 3

Word Ways

Pun Quiz: what common phrases or words do these misdefinitions refer to? The numbers tell how many letters are in the words of the answer. But (2/4/4) means the answer is one 11-letter word made up of elements of 2, 4, 1 and 4 letters. My answers are at the back of this issue.

On Palindromes, Richard Lederer

Word Ways

The accident and popular Art of the Palindrome blazes out from the epicenter of the universe of letter play. Alistair Reid expresses what may be the very heart of the fascination for matters palindromic when he writes, "The dream which occupies the tortuous mind of every palindromist is that somewhere within the confines of the language lurks the Great Palindrome, the nutshell which not only fulfills the intricate demands of the art, flowing sweetly in both directions, but which also contains the Final Truth of Things." There is indeed something magic about the palindromic craft, the platonic form of making …

Embedding Hamlet In Pi, Mike Keith, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Take the text of Shakespeare's Hamlet beginning with its title "The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Demark...". Write down the digits of pi (after the decimal point) in successive slices, reduce these mod 26, and convert the resulting numbers to letters using the correspondence A=0, B=1...Z=25.

Reversible Seven-Squares, Rex Gooch

Word Ways

A reversible word square is one in which every row can be read backwards, and every column upwards - see especially the examples in the second section below. Every word must be either a reversible word such as REVILER (RELIVER in reverse) or a palindrome, which is a special kind of reversible word. In this article, the term reversible word does not include palindromes. In general, counts include valid rotations and reflections.