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Back Cover

Word Ways

Back cover of this issue including instructions to authors.

Anagrams, Anyone?, David Shulman

Word Ways

I have been asked by the editors to share my expertise on anagrams with the readers of Word Ways. But, actually, with a smidgen of modesty, I do not pretend to be an expert. I may have had more experience than other puzzle creators, yet a good original anagram is still just as hard to create as ever.

Captain Smith's Vlgrie, George H. Scheetz

Word Ways

Harry B. Partridge, in "Ad Memoriam Demetrii" (August 1986), introduced a newly-discovered word ending in -gry. I was very interested in this announcement, since I Have been working on a little treatise of such words; ulgry increased my list to nineteen examples.

Answers And Solutions To Puzzles In This Issue

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to puzzles in this issue.

Adventure In The Supermarket, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

Most of you probably look upon a trip to the supermarket as a routine shopping exercise, one that can even be burdensome or frustrating. Those of us sensitive to the impact of the language on thought tend to see it in a different light: as a semantic adventure, a mind-boggling word game, a foray into a verbal fairyland.

Borgmann Resurrectus

Word Ways

Although Dmitri Borgmann died on December 7, 1985, his work lives on for awhile. The editor has a collection of unpublished articles sent to Word Ways, and it is from this that the present memorial issue has been assembled. There is more: a final installment in scheduled to appear in February 1988, the 20th anniversary of the inaugural issue of Word Ways under his editorship.

History Reinterpreted, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

All of creation, whether animate or inanimate, strives to satisfy the ultimate, elemental logological low - one requiring that designations to begin with letters in the first half of the English alphabet (A through M).

Crypotograms On The Prowl, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

One of the fundamental ways of enciphering a text for the purpose of concealing its message is to rearrange the letters of which it consists. The result is a so-called transposition cipher. If we apply its principle to individual words or names, we can achieve interesting results. For example, ECHOIC turns into CHOICE with the mere shift of its first letter to the end of the word: CLAIMED converts into DECIMAL (or into MEDICAL, DECLAIM, CADMIEL, MEDALIC, CAMELID, or MALICED): and MOUNTAINEER becomes ENUMERATION. Tens of thousands of other English words and names can similarly be transposed.

100 Quality 6-By-6 Word Squares, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

The history of word square construction in the United States has largely been one of the strenuous attempts to build the largest possible word squares. While size of a legitimate objective in logological pursuits, word square experts such as the formists of the Eastern Puzzlers' League and the National Puzzlers' League permitted that objective to dominate them completely. As a result, they sacrificed word square quality: most of their constructions were of unacceptably low quality. More recently, word lists have been fed into computers programmed to construct all word squares extractable from words in the lists used.

New Elemental Vistas, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

In recent decades, physics and chemistry have been active in contributing new words and names to the English word-stock - a fact for which logologists are duly thankful: the more words there are for them to use, the more they can accomplish. Playing only a very minor role in the overall picture have been new names for chemical elements, since progress in discovering or creating additional elements is excruciatingly slow. For quite a number of years, the number of elements with firmly established names has stood at 103, the elements involved spanning the range from HYDROGEN (element 1) to LAWRENCIUM …

Advice To The Lovelorn, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

In these decadent times, no newspaper is complete without a column of advice for the loverlorn and for others with problems. Since newspapers consist of words and we specialize in words, it follows with logic absolute that we, too, must address ourselves to the problems of the lovelorn.

On Constructing Long Words, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

Of perennial interest to Word Ways readers are very long English words - words of 27 or more letters, written solidly, without hyphens, apostrophes, or other letter separations. Unfortunately, categories: obscure medical terms: even obscurer medical terms: weird place names of Amerind, Welsh, Maori, Thai, or other equally exotic provenance, resembling nothing even remotely English: fictitious words listed and defined by dictionaries. Examples of fictitious words include:

HONORICICABILITUDINATATIBUS (Web 1 and 2)

FLOCCIPAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION (Oxford English Dictionary)

SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS (Random House)

PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOCANOKONISOSIS (Web 2)

PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS (Web 3)

The Ultimate Synonym Group, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

What is the most talked-about subject in the English-speaking world today? Baldness! How do I know? Because there are more synonyms for the word baldness than for any other English word or term.

A Logological Geoquiz, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

The pages of Word Ways have frequently featured articles and quizzes concerned with the logological peculiarities of place names. Most of these contributions have dealt with United States geography - with the names of the 50 states, for instance. Since the United States is only one of about 175 nations in the world, this heavy concentration on American place names is, to put it charitably, somewhat parochial. It is especially so because names elsewhere in the world are logologically just as interesting as United States names.

Irish Bulls, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

An Irish bull, or simply a bull, is a ludicrous language blunder: an illogical, absurd, and/or amusing mistake - especially one that is paradoxical or self-contradictory. Some dictionaries take a casual approach to Irish bulls, defining them but omitting actual examples.

Quelque Chose, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

Kickshaws is currently being assembled by a series of guest editors. All contributions should be sent to the editor in Morristown, New Jersey.

Instructions To Authors

Word Ways

Back cover, including instructions to authors who wish to contribute to Word Ways

Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 20 Number 1

Word Ways

Publication information including table of contents.

Colloquy

Word Ways

Webster's Dictionary defines colloquy as mutual discourse. Readers are encouraged to submit additions, corrections, and comments about earlier articles appearing in Word Ways. Comments received at least one month prior to publication of an issue will appear in that issue.

Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 19, Number 4

Word Ways

Front cover and publication information for this issue.

Vanity Of Vanities, Faith W. Eckler

Word Ways

I happened to be driving down the road recently when a bright red sports car went by bearing the vanity license plate 4 MY EGO. Then and there came a dazzling revelation: the whole subject of vanity license plates as a vehicle for wordplay has recieved very little attention from logologists.

Verbal Hypertension, David Morice

Word Ways

By expanding the number of English verb tenses, we can express our temporal experiences more precisely. Beyond the old-fashioned Future Perfect ("I will have walked") lie new tenses just waiting for us to go boldly where no grammarian has gone before.

Some New Long Transposals, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

Over the years Word Ways has published numerous transposals, groups of words such as CARTHORSE/ORCHESTRA and TRANSPIRE/TERRAPINS. Recently I went on a transposal-finding spree, setting myself the target of finding exactly one hundred new sets of transposals involving words of ten or more letters.

The First Double And Triple Acrostics, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Double and triple acrostics occupy an important niche in the history of word puzzles, it is generally recognized that they were the predecessors to the crossword puzzle. For those unfamiliar with the genre, a double acrostic consists of clues for a sequence of words (the cross-lights) to be written in a list, plus two clues to the words spelled out by the first and last letters of the cross-lights (the uprights). In a triple acrostic a third upright is formed out of interior letters in the cross-lights. The cross-lights may consist of words of varying lengths, but the uprights are …

Letter Perfect, Richard Lederer

Word Ways

Many logologists have noted that most of the letters in our alphanet sound like English words. To take four example, CUE and QUEUE sound like the letter Q, ARE sounds like R, EWE, YOU and YEW sound like the letter U, and WHY sounds like Y.

End Play, Faith W. Eckler

Word Ways

You are working on a crossword puzzle and the grid shows _EAR. Without an additional clue you would not know whether the missing letter was a B, D, F, G, H, L, N, P, R, S, T or W. All this proves is that many English words have similar contructions with only one letter different, a fact exploited by certain prize puzzle constructors who devise fiendishly clever puzzles which appear to have two or more correct answers. Only by following their tortuous logic can you divine the acceptable solution.

Colloquy

Word Ways

A collection of responses to previously published articles.

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to the puzzles in this issue along with instructions to authors.

On The Table, Henri Picciotto

Word Ways

Although I hope it is not too easy, this cryptic crossword is elementary.

Genealogic, David Morice

Word Ways

FATHER, MOTHER, and a few other genealogical words (DAD, MOM, POP, MA, PA, GRANDFATHER, GRANDMOTHER, etc.) have the unusual property of generating sentences that are true or false, depending on the number of words used and how they are read.