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Generalized Alternades: Part 2, Rex Gooch

Word Ways

For a discussion of Generalized Alternades the reader is referred to the first part of this article in the August 2000 Word Ways. There examples of the simplest kind of alternade were given: single words with component parts read in the same directions, as TRIENNIALLY = TINILY + RENAL (stride length 2) or PACIFICATORY = PICO + AFAR + CITY (stride length 3).

Art Xtra, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Daniel McGarth writes "Exxon is one of my favorite words. It occurred to me this morning the question of whether there is any way that you could create a palindrome containing that word..."

Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 33 Issue 4

Word Ways

Front cover and publication information for this issue.

Multiple Bigrams, Susan Thorpe

Word Ways

A group of two successive letters is called a bigram. There are 26 different bigrams beginning with each letter of the alphabet making a total of 26x26 = 676 different bigrams. The word BIGRAM itself incorporates the five bigrams BI, IG, GR, RA and AM, and none of them is repeated. COCOa, DEriDE, IOnizatIOn and tORpOR, on the other hand, each contain a pair of identical bigrams and there are thousands of these double bigram words ("Miami Words" in the February 2000 Word Ways are a special kind of double bigram word). Somewhat less common are words such as fINgerprINtINg …

Aeiou: Supervocalics In Webster's Third, Eric W. Chaikin

Word Ways

FOUNDING FATHERS and WOMAN SUFFRAGISTS, get out your FOUNTAIN PENS-it's time for another visit to the world of AEIOU. To do justice to my fascination with all things AEIOU, I recently introduced the term SUPERVOCALIC to refer to any item, be it word, phrase or proper noun, containing each of the five vowels once and only once, and no Y. The term is modeled on the existing word 'univocalic' which describes a word or phrase that contains only one vowel (potentially repeated, as in 'Mississippi' or Ellen DeGeneres'). It has the added appeal of being self-referential, that is to say …

The Pangram Film Festival Revisited, Richard Sabey

Word Ways

In the February 2000 issue of Word Ways, Douglas Fink reported on the Pangram Film Festival. The idea is to construct a list of film titles which are collectively a pangram (i.e., they use every letter of the alphabet) which is a heterogram (i.e., they do not use any letter more than once). Digits and punctuation may be used freely. Douglas's article raised questions as to what superlatives are possible among heterogram pangram film lists (from now on in this article, usually just "lists"). Here are some of my answers to this question, followed by questions of my own.

My Life In The Headlines, William Young

Word Ways

I frequently talk to reporters when i am at work. My name has appeared in my publications, including the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, and even People Magazine. I used to enjoy being quoted, but now I would prefer that "William Young" never be used as a source for information. The possibilities of misquotations and lots of follow-up calls far outweigh any pleasure I feel upon seeing my name. I now do not even bother to save most of the newsclips that quote me.

The Marathon In Palindromes, Jeff Grant

Word Ways

With the encouragement and support of my wife, Pat, I recently walked a marathon (42-195km) for the first time. This experience inspired the following palindromes, purportedly based on quotes collected progressively from a motley crew of international participants during another marathon.

The Listmaker, Dave Morice

Word Ways

I have a habit of making up lists. My very first list, which I wrote in first grade, was a list of all lists I wanted to make in the future. That list began with my second list, which was called "a list of my very first list". My third list came next, but I lost it soon after I made it. My fourth was a list of lists I'd lost. My fifth was a list of things that might have been on my third list.

The "A" Game, Richard Lederer

Word Ways

When someone had a good day on the athletic field, we say "She brought her "A" game with her." Now I invite you to play a different kind of "A" game, one involving charaded homogrpahs and homophones. Each answer consists of words that sound alike, although the words may be spelled differently. The answer will always be in the form of "a + word + word" or "word + a + word". From each definition you are to identify the words.

Butterfly Transadditions, Susan Thorpe

Word Ways

Over the years, many examples of transadditions have appeared in Word Ways. A transaddition is the result of adding a letter to a word and then rearranging all the letters to form another, longer word. It is relatively easy to start with a single letter and, step by step, achieve transadditions up to length 7 or 8 letters. Longer ones are more difficult.

Textual Logology, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

The most important purpose of Word Ways is to present new logological ideas, showing how far one can move beyond the well-trodden paths of palindromes, anagrams, word squares, lipograms and the like. However, it is also important to step back now and then to observe how disparate parts of logology relate to each other, as can be seen in Making the Alphabet Dance. This article shows how various logological concepts appearing in Word Ways during the past thirty years can be grouped in a new logological field, that of textual logology.

Kickshaws, Dave Morice

Word Ways

A collection of linguistic kickshaws.

Anagrams And Antigrams: An Antigram, Michael Keith

Word Ways

The two short essays below are transposals of each other (that is, each can be formed by rearranging the letters in the other). More precisely, they are antigrams, since one is an essay on anagrams and the other is an essay on the opposite topic, antigrams.

Asian Mormons, Stuart Kidd

Word Ways

Editor's Note: In the August 1992 and February 1994 Word Ways, Harry L. Stern presented a number of poems based on transpostions of friends; names, and in August 1994 Susan Thorpe followed up with a poem on her name. Here is a further example of this genre.

Palindromic Fortune Cookies, John E. Connett

Word Ways

Chinese fortune cookies are famous for their inscrutability; in the May 1988 Kickshaws, Eric Albert reported his favorite, "He Is Kissing a Triding Keepsake Of Yours". Short palindromes are similar, often giving us a skewed view of reality.

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

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

Colloquy

Word Ways

A collection of responses to previously published articles.

Raven Two, Michael Keith

Word Ways

The poem below, including the above title, is an exact anagram of the 4905 characters in Poe's poem "The Raven, the famous poem by Edgar Allan Poe", also including its title.

Begin Now, Nick Montfort

Word Ways

In the following love poem all the words are in alphabetical order. I am indebted to the much more extensive, if much less sensible and cyntactical, Legendary, Lexical, Loquacious Love by Eve Rhymer. Her work contains all the words from a romance novel, alphabetized into 25 chapters (no X). A more sensible and very impressive work of this sort is the last chapter of Walter Abish's novel Alphabetical Africa, a list of alphabetized two-word phrases that recapitulate the novel.

Back Cover

Word Ways

Instructions to authors wishing to contribute to Word Ways.

Sign Here, Edmund Conti

Word Ways

I've had more than 500 poems published. Of course, they've been mostly in obscure publications, and by the time I ticked them all off to you they would have disappeared from view. I write a weekly column for our local newspaper, but based on the feedback (none), I wonder if anyone is reading it. Occasionally I get an honorable mention or even a first prize in the New York Magazine Competition and someone might tell me, "Hey I saw your limerick in The New Yorker." O.K., it's not a limerick (not usually) and, it's not the The New Yorker.

Hard-Working Words, Chris Cole

Word Ways

There are about two million words in the English language and exactly twenty-six letters in the English alphabet. Therefore, the average English word should be less than five letters long, since there are over eleven million words that can be spelled with five letters. However, in fact the average length of an English word is around twelve letters.

Rat Slink Trestle, William Webster

Word Ways

Het weest ism tasted, "Thaw era orad appels?"

Shore surname," eth ahorse rhamnose periled.

Rented earthed Riding Horse created whit hocks. Ti saw whit retag ferlie, hes cloud being het frits mage.

Bananagrams 11, Edmund Conti

Word Ways

Bananagrams-anagrams to drive you bananas-consist of rhymed couplets, each one containing a pair of anagrams to be solved. One of the rhyming words will always be an anagram, and the couplet itself will offer clues to help solve the anagram. Answers can be found in Answers and Solutions at the end of the issue.

The Name Is The Game, Richard Lederer

Word Ways

Al Gore's name spoonerized is "galore" which turns out to be a clever Al Gore rhythm. This year Republicans are experiencing Al Gore-aphobia, but are hoping to Bush whack the opposition. George Bush's name anagrammed becomes "He bugs Gore," and, adding the the W, "He grew bogus" which I realize you may interpret as a Bush League prey on words. Switching first letters of the candidates' last names, we discover that one will gush and the other will bore. Looks like we're in for a Gore-Tex campaign--I hope it doesn't leak. I predict that at the end of the campaign …

Generalized Alternades: Part 1, Rex Gooch

Word Ways

This article reports on work done on alternades and their generalisations. It presents new longer alternades, trinades, etc., and reports for the first time (as far as I can see) words which have these properties up to three ways-polyalternades or multiple alternades. I have also found words whose extracted words are themselves alternades (multilevel alternades).

Colloquy

Word Ways

A collection of responses to previously published articles.

Footwords To Howl, For Solomon, Onon Gonsborg

Word Ways

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!

Bananagrams 10, Edmund Conti

Word Ways

Bananagrams anagrams to drive you bananas -- consist of rhymed couplets, each one containing a pair of anagrams to be solved. One of the rhyming words will always be an anagram, and the couplet itself will offer clues to help solve the anagram. Answers can be found in Answers and Solutions at the end of the issue.