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A Tribute To "The Mathemagician", Scot Morris
A Tribute To "The Mathemagician", Scot Morris
Word Ways
A tribute to Martin Gardner from the book ONMI Games, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983. Used by permission of the author.
"Man Should Not Scamper With The Unkown!" A New Chrestomathy Of Linguistic Miscellanea, Don Hauptman
"Man Should Not Scamper With The Unkown!" A New Chrestomathy Of Linguistic Miscellanea, Don Hauptman
Word Ways
Numerous critics and curmudgeons have inveighed against the concept of Facebook "friends," rightly pointing out that hundreds of people can't be one's friends in any meaningful sense of the word friendship.
Receptive Words -1, Steve Kahan
Receptive Words -1, Steve Kahan
Word Ways
The three-letter word WHY is called receptive because each of its letters can be replaced by another to form a different word.
Kickshaws, David Morice
Saltatory Evolution And The Vine Of Life, . Anil
Saltatory Evolution And The Vine Of Life, . Anil
Word Ways
Contrary to the gradualism of Lyell and Darwin, the fossil record shows that most evolution is saltatory, occurring in scattered leaps. I've studies three-letter organisms which by point mutation saltate (jump-evolve) into others, as yam into ram. You may doubt single mutations can turn plants into animals, but letters don't lie!
Biological Gematria, . Anil
Biological Gematria, . Anil
Word Ways
The gematria or alphanumeric values (AV) of the 837 biotypes in the M-W Pocket Dictionary ('06) range from 12 (bee=2+5+5) to 176 (whippoorwill).
Segregated Lettershifts, Jim Puder
Segregated Lettershifts, Jim Puder
Word Ways
Friends, are you fascinated, as so many imaginative people are, by the possibilities inherent in lettershifting, but find that you're reluctant to actually perform this radical, word-altering operation?
The Long And The Short Of It, Susan Thorpe
The Long And The Short Of It, Susan Thorpe
Word Ways
The Long And The Short Of It is devoted to long and short vowel sounds of the same vowel, in various guises. No extraneous vowels are allowed.
Long One-Syllable Words, Jeff Grant
Long One-Syllable Words, Jeff Grant
Word Ways
There are quite a few common 9-letter words pronounced with a single syllable.
Finding The Answers Within, Will Shortz
Finding The Answers Within, Will Shortz
Word Ways
Last May in my weekly puzzle segment on NPR's "Weekend Edition Sunday" I posed a creative challenge to listeners: Write a clue or definition for a word of five or more letters in which the clue actually conceals the word inside it.
Some Possible Items On The Menu At A Mathematics Restaurant, Chris Morgan
Some Possible Items On The Menu At A Mathematics Restaurant, Chris Morgan
Word Ways
What might you find on the menu down at the Mathematics Restaurant? Here are some possibilities.
Automynorcagrammatical Raven, Matt Franklin
Automynorcagrammatical Raven, Matt Franklin
Word Ways
in 1975, Howard Bergerson published an article "Automynocagrams" in Word Ways. The challenge at the end is to write an "automynorcagrammatical Raven". Here is my (short) attempt, begun in 1975 and put down many times between now and then.
Light Verse: I Rhyme, Therefore I Amb, Jerry Dorbin
Elemental Words Revisited, Tristan Miller
Elemental Words Revisited, Tristan Miller
Word Ways
The names and abbreviations of the chemical elements have been a perennial topic in Word Ways, going back the very first issue.
Answers And Solutions
Word Ways
Answers and solutions to the quizzes and puzzles contained in this issue.
A Tribute To "Armand T. Ringer" 1914-2010, Jeremiah Farrell
A Tribute To "Armand T. Ringer" 1914-2010, Jeremiah Farrell
Word Ways
A crossword puzzle.
Look Close, Harold Jacobs
Welcome To Ana-Links Puzzles, Pavel Curtis
Welcome To Ana-Links Puzzles, Pavel Curtis
Word Ways
What are Ana-Links puzzles? Ana-Links are a new kind of puzzle, invented by designer Pavel Curtis (aka Lambda), that combines aspects of jigsaws, wordplay, and mechanical puzzles in a unified, multi-stage solving experience.
Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 47, Number 4
Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 47, Number 4
Word Ways
Front cover and publication information for this issue, including a table of contents.
Extract Of The Proceedings Of The Palindrome Society Annual Convention, Richard Canty
Extract Of The Proceedings Of The Palindrome Society Annual Convention, Richard Canty
Word Ways
Good Evening, fellow palindromists. I am Professor Emord Nilap, the delegate from Albania, and I'll be your M.C. for this occasion.
The Proper Commons, J. James Mancuso
The Proper Commons, J. James Mancuso
Word Ways
The challenge is to create prose using capitonyms -- words that are both proper nouns and common nouns, and write parallel sentences. You must use them all as proper nouns in one, and then as common nouns, in the same order, in the companion sentence.
Hugo Brandt Corstius (1935-2014), Joop Van Der Vaart
Hugo Brandt Corstius (1935-2014), Joop Van Der Vaart
Word Ways
Being one of the probably very few Dutch subscribers to Word Ways magazine (In fact, Karen and Jerry have informed me that I am now the captain of an almost abandoned ship, being the sole remaining Dutch subscriber), I feel that the reader of Word Ways should be notified that Dutch author, mathematician and master of word play Hugo Brandt Corstius, sadly passed away at the age of 78 on February 28th 2014. Furthermore, I feel that you should know more about him than you might know already.
Gichd Linguistic Outreach Programs, Faiz Paktian
Gichd Linguistic Outreach Programs, Faiz Paktian
The Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction
The Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) introduced linguistic outreach programs (LOP) to provide mine action training and information in multiple languages. The LOP also promote communication between countries and organize regional workshops and meetings. By providing non-English training and information exchange opportunities, GICHD improved outreach and broadened potential beneficiaries, as well as strengthened mine action centers and organizations worldwide.
"Pay No Attention To The Can Behind The Merton" A Gallimaufry Of New Spoonerisms, Don Hauptman
"Pay No Attention To The Can Behind The Merton" A Gallimaufry Of New Spoonerisms, Don Hauptman
Word Ways
It isn't often that spoonerisms are in the news. But this past May, one made headlines nationally. A New Brunswick, New Jersey, bar owner won a prolonged legal battle over the right to call his establishment Buck Foston. The city, objecting to the name (which refers to the rivalry between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox) denied him a liquor license. A jury decided that his First Amendment rights had been violated and awarded him $1.5 million.
All this trouble for a nonsensical spoonerism! We can do better.
Sound Beginnings And Endings, Susan Thorpe
Sound Beginnings And Endings, Susan Thorpe
Word Ways
This is all to do with the pronunciation of the beginnings and endings of words.
Minimalist Crossword Puzzle, Daniel W. Galef
Higher-Order Contronyms, Tristan Miller
Higher-Order Contronyms, Tristan Miller
Word Ways
A contronym or autontonym is a polysemous word where one of the meanings is the antonym of another-that is, a word which is its own opposite.
Cubic Logic, Jeremiah Farrell
Cubic Logic, Jeremiah Farrell
Word Ways
At the fourth Gathering for Gardner in Atlanta I presented an electronic depiction of a four-dimensional cube on which a magic trick could be performed.