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Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to the puzzles contained in this issue.

Double Duty Words, Richard Lederer

Word Ways

The vocabulary of English contains anywhere from three-quarters of a million to one million words - by far the largest in the history of humankind. Despite this impressive accomplishment, many words in English have to do double duty and convey more than one meaning. As a result, one word can function as the opposite of two very different words.

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to the puzzles contained in this issue.

Front Cover And Publication Information

Word Ways

Front cover and publication information for this issue, including a table of contents.

Words With Unusual Shapes, Alan Frank

Word Ways

Previous articles in Word Ways have discussed such matters as the words with the most hyphens, words with internal capital letters, and various symbols which appear as entries in Webster's Second. These can all be characterized as word shapes. This article will present some of the ways in which shapes can be unusual, including examples and a quiz.

Rivers Of Type, Fritzi Striebel

Word Ways

What we have called rivers of type might be defined as those white portions between the printed words on a page of type which sometime form significant patterns. Discovering this phenomenon for the first time, I wondered why it had taken me so long, half my life in fact. I made a hobby of collecting rare examples, trying to find the longest river, the tallest vertical, the longest angle. They have a fugitive quality which adds zest to the search.

The Portmanteau Not Taken, Edward R. Wolpow

Word Ways

Lewis Carroll discussed portmanteau words in his exposition on the poem Jabberwocky. The two words MISERABLE and FLIMSY produced a hybrid MIMSY, incorporating some of the letters and some of the meanings of both. But why not FLISERABLE? The portmanteau word, also known as the blend, has many examples in English.

Food Subtractives: Losing -Ed And Ly, Michael Smith

Word Ways

A lot of strange things have been happening to our food in the past thirty or forty years, many of which I would prefer not to think about - maybe even know about. As our technology has developed, the various food industries have attempted in numerous ways to "improve" our food; many of their attempts have involved adding chemicals to "improve" taste, texture, color, aroma, shelf life, profits, etc. Of course, not everyone has been in favor of such improvements. Among some groups there has been a great hue and cry over the use of food additives; but this minor …

The Language Of Space, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

The Language of Space is an artificial language developed by the late W. John Weilgart, a linguist and psychotherapist. Unlike other artificial languages such as Esperanto and Volapuk, its words are constructed out of an alphabet of 31 basic concepts, each depicted by a symbol (a plus, a circle, a triangle, a wavy line, etc.) and an alphabetic letter.

On Constructing Constrained Poetry, Howard W. Bergerson

Word Ways

The late mathematician Eric Temple Bell wrote science fiction stories for pulp magazines back in the 1920s and 1930s under the pen name John Taine, an activity which was said to be an embarrassment to his colleagues. I read many science fiction stories back in that time, including some by John Taine about whom I then knew nothing.

Metalinguistic Thoughts At Random, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Below, dear reader, you will encounter perhaps the longest English-language literary isogram ever constructed: every word therein is unique. While reading, please watch carefully for inadvertent duplications (hopefully, they appear impossible to find).

Poetic Justice, Walter Shedlofsky

Word Ways

Police Lieutenant Arthur Jamison was not pleased with Sergeant Johnson. Despite seventeen years on the force, his black and gray hair needed a haircut, while a paunch was evident behind the unpressed uniform.

D'Ou Etes-Vous?, Don Laycock

Word Ways

There are only a few possiblilties for naming the inhabitants of places in the United States: New Yorker, Chicagoan, Philadelphian, Bostionian, Scrantonite. There may be more exotic forms for those from towns with French or Spanish names, but the possibilities fall far short of even Britain, where Oxonians come from Oxford, Cantabrigians from Cambridge, Liverpudlians from Liverpool, and Mancunians from Manchester. In my home town of Newcastle in New South Wales, we used to pride ourselves on our knowledge of Latin, calling ourselves Novocastrians.

Manifestly Manifolded Manias, Paul Hellweg

Word Ways

Here we have a listing of manifestly manifolded manias, which is to say that the following collection of mania-words is obviously diverse. And diverse it is: nearly three hundred manias are identified and named herein. They range from the relatively benign DOROMANIAC (someone who compulsively gives presents) to the downright murderous ANDROPHONOMANIAC (someone with homicidal tendencies). In between these extremes, there are undoubtedly manias which will strike responsive chords in all of us.

Gary Gray, Meet Edna Dean, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Names with interesting logological properties are a source of fascination to the logologist, particularly if they belong to real-life individuals. This article describes the results of a search through more than one hundred telephone directories of U.S. cities or metropolitan areas, in quest of people whose first names can be transposed to form their last name.

Kickshaws, Will Shortz

Word Ways

A collection of linguistic kickshaws.

The Poet's Corner

Word Ways

A collection of poems sent in by readers.

This Quiz Is A Hit, Leonard R.N. Ashley

Word Ways

We hope to have a hit, at least, with this quiz which asks you to think of slang expressions containing the word "hit." See if you can hit on the answers to all or most of these posers I hit you with. If you get 15 or 20, consider yourself to have hit it big. Answers can be found in Answers and Solutions at the end of this issue.

Varieties Of American English, Maxey Brooke

Word Ways

Language has sometimes been compared with a tree: from a a trunk grow limbs, from the limbs grow branches, and from the branches grow twigs. Unlike a tree, there are cross-connections between limbs and branches, and even with the tree trunk itself. In this study, the trunk of the language tree is the English of Great Britain during the late seventeenth century. Three great limbs that have grown from this trunk are American English (including Canadian), Australian English (sometimes called Strine). and South African English.

Back Cover

Word Ways

Back cover of this issue including information for authors and subscribers.

Colloquy

Word Ways

A collection of responses to previously published articles.

The Daughter Of The Farrier, Kay Haugaard

Word Ways

"Name, please."

"Harold Walter Ichthyologist."

"I beg your pardon - what was that again?"

Who wouldn't beg your pardon after hearing a name like that? And imagine having it and spelling it to every bank teller, school admissions clerk, secretary, credit manager, and prospective employer.

Rhyming Terms, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

Some while ago, we began to consider the whole class of words (and other dictionary items) where the first part rhymes with the second part. Many of the simplest examples are what are called second-order reduplication. In a second-order reduplication, the spelling of the first and second parts differ by only a single letter (for example, HOOTCHIE-KOOTCHIE). Not all second-order reduplications necessarily have the two halves rhyming (for example, MISHMASH and SENSED).

Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 19 Number 1

Word Ways

Front cover and publication information for this issue, including a table of contents.

Dmitri Borgmann, 1927-1985

Word Ways

In honor of Dmitri Borgmann's contributions to the field of logology, Word Ways published in February 1985 an issue entirely devoted to his work. The present issue, originally planned as a sequel, becomes a memorial instead, for he died of a heart attack at the age of 58, on December 7, 1985. Logology mourns his death.

Antifrequency Words, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

Almost all English letter-frequency counts agree that the four least-often used letters of the alphabet in English text are J, Q, X, and Z. What the relative frequencies of these four letters are is in dispute.

You And Your Relations, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

Have you ever wondered who you really are? If you are like most people, you have probably thought of yourself as the I, or the SELF, or the EGO. (If you're into psychoanalysis, you may, of course, have preferred to identify with the ID or with the SUPEREGO - but that's another story.)

The 1988 Presidential Campaign, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

It is high time, in my opinion, to begin considering the potential Democratic and Repuplican candidates in the 1988 Presidential campaign - from a logological standpoint, or course. Their qualifications, proposed policies, and popularity with American voters are entirely irrelevant.

Mathematical Equivalence, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

One way of testing words and names to determine whether or not they are really the same despite superficial, outward differences - differences in length, meaning, spelling, and pronunciation, for example - is to score them arithmetically. By assigning numerical values to the letters of the alphabet (A = 1, B = 2, etc.) and adding the values of the letters constituting a word, name, or phrase, we arrive at a single mathematical value for the term of interest to us. That value makes possible a simple, straightforward comparison between different terms. Those with the same numerical total are mathematically …

Subterranean English, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

Unbeknownst to most of its users, the English language has always existed on two levels: (1) the surface level, with words and names possessing those meanings graciously conferred upon them by dictionaries, and (2) a subterranean level where words and names are used with their real meanings. This article presents a short glossary of English on the subterranean level: 56 undergrounders, as the terms are familiarly called. Readers are invited to add to this collection of real word meanings.