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Janeisms, Leroy F. Meyers

Word Ways

In the May 1980 Kickshaws, Charles Bostick introduced a variety of wordplay called Ravenisms in which one mixes cliches like mad as a wet hatter (mad as a wet hen, mad as a hatter) don't burn your bridges at both ends (don't burn your bridges behind you, don't burn the candle at both ends) put one's oar in the ring (put in one's oar, throw one's hat in the ring).

Hyphen-Straddling Bigrams, Edward R. Wolpow

Word Ways

Our 26 letters allow 676 possible bigrams, and various searches have been made to find as many of these as possible in certain logological categories, particularly at the beginning and at the end of words. What follows is an attempt at discovering as many as possible of the 676 pairs straddling the hyphen in compound words. Webster's Second Edition (NI2) viewed hyphenated words more favorably than Webster's Third (NI3). In spite of the tendency to drop hyphens from the newer edition, it appears that our newest words, as found in the Addendum to NI3, have a greater likelihood of hyphenation …

Front Cover And Publication Information

Word Ways

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

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to the puzzles contained in this issue.

The Riddles Of The Sirens, Walter Shedlofsky

Word Ways

Corafan, pseudo-poet and mock court jester, hesitated before he entered the king's garden. The riddle was the best he had constructed to date, but he had doubts that the king would solve it. Lately, King Mustapha (seven subsequent irrelevant names) Ferucil had not been pleased and one more displeasure could mean dismissal.

Front Cover And Publication Information

Word Ways

Front cover and publication information for this issue.

Pick A Government, Paul Hellweg

Word Ways

Living in a democracy, we are periodically cursed (blessed?) with election year mania. Occasionally, it all seems to amount to naught, and people have been heard to ask: "Isn't there another way?" Of couse there is. Different types of government abound. More than eighty varieties are presented below. As you read through them, perhaps you'll find one that sounds a little better than democracy. On the other hand, a look at these alternatives might be enough to renew everyone's faith in the electoral process.

Crossword Construction By Computer, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

In the November 1980 Word Ways, I briefly described a computer program designed by Lawrence J. Mazlack to place letters one at a time in a specified crossword grid until all vertical and horizontal slots are filled by words in a stored dictionary. Even though his test grids were very simple (the largest one, a 13-by-13, contained 30 percent blank letters), the program did not always succeed in fully filling them with words. More dismayingly, Mazlack's program completely failed to find a double word square of size 4-by-4, although this may have been due to a limited vocabulary size (2000 …

On Again, Off Again, Leonard R. N. Ashley

Word Ways

Here are fifty idioms you can work on -- easy once you catch onto the fact that each one is on about a phrase in which the word ON is featured.

Beyond Malayalam?, Harry B. Partridge

Word Ways

We wordsters owe a debt of gratitude to the thousands of indefatigable delvers in the mines of language who bring out the ore which we smelt to fashion our tools and toys. Let me illustrate this by singling out an important and fascinating book by C. F. and F. M. Voegelin, a husband and wife team of linguisticians, called Classification and Index of the World's Languages in the Foundations of Linguistics Series under the editorship of Prof. Charles F. Hockett of Cornell University, a contributor to Word Ways, distinguished linguistician, composer, poet, and doughty marshal of the hosts of the …

E Pluribus Unum, Richard E. Douglass

Word Ways

In most instances, one adds an S to pluralize a word: all well and good. But when a second S is added, interestnig things begin to happen; suddenly, the word becomes singular again, or takes on an altogether new meaning -- ADVENTURES becomes ADVENTURESS, or CARES becomes CARESS.

Try your hand at identifying the following dual-identity words.

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to the puzzles contained in this issue.

The Contest Center, Frank Rubin

Word Ways

About a year ago, I started a small company to run word puzzle contests. I called it The Contest Center, a rather pretentious name, but one I hoped would fit as the company grew to what conceivably could become my regular occupation when I retired.

More About Number-Names, Edward R. Wolpow

Word Ways

This article continues my investigations of the logological properties of number-names begun in the February 1980 Word Ways with "Alphabetizing the Integers". Following the practice of Webster's Third New International Dictionary, we consider number-names up to, but not including, one thousand vigintillion. Furthermore, we disregard all 'ands' and specify that no power of ten can stand alone without a modifier: e.g., ONE MILLION, but not MILLION. All calculations reported below have been made with a hand calculator, so it may be worth verifying and extending these results with the aid of a high speed digital computer.

English?, Maxey Brooke

Word Ways

There are four basic ways wehreby words enter a language. There are the original words, so old we can trace them no further. In English, this is a handful of Celtic words. Next, there are imposed words: those forced upon a people by their conquerors. After the Celts, these were the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons (including the Jutes), the Danes, and the Norman-French. Finally, there are invented words and borrowed words.

Kickshaws, Faith W. Eckler

Word Ways

A collection of linguistic kickshaws assembled by a guest editor.

Back Cover

Word Ways

Back cover of this issue, including instructions to authors.

O Lucifer!, Ramona J. Quincunx

Word Ways

Have you ever experienced a desperate need to establish the precise meaning of a reasonably common word? A word ordinary enough to be included in the original, 25,000-entry version of The Merriam-Webster Pocket Dictionary?

Low-Scoring Scrabble Games, Alan Frank

Word Ways

What is the lowest-scoring Scrabble game? If players refuse to trade in tiles, the answer to this question is simple: consider the game in which one player draws QZXJKWW and the other YYVVFFH. Since neither player can form a word, each player passes three times and the game ends. Each then subtracts the total value of his tiles, resulting in a final score of -28 to -49.

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 up to a month prior to publication of an issue will appear in that issue.

An Investigation Of Aceinorst, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

On pages 292-3 of Language on Vacation, Dmitri Borgmann lists and defines seventeen transposals for the letters ACEINORST. One of these is a coinage, but the other sixteen can be found in various dictionaries which I have indicated below.

Consecutive Identical Letters, Jeff Grant

Word Ways

Many common words contain a doubled letter, for example LEER, GRAMMAR and DAZZLE. To find dictionary examples for every letter of the alphabet is a difficult but not impossible task. Well-known words can be found for 22 of the letters; the list below (supplied by the editor) gives the most commonly-encountered word in the Kucera and Francis million-word corpus.

The Palindrome Syndrome, Charlene Weir

Word Ways

George Potter sighed at the cruel fate that compelled him to go through life burdened with a nocturnal affliction. Rays from the street-light, filtering through a gap in the curtain, caught the lampshade and tried to make it represent something new. But it refused to resemble anything except a black bear, then disappeared altogether as night tipped over into dawn.

Myths, Forward And Backward, Patrick Hunt

Word Ways

Word palindromes are very difficult to create, much more rigorous than the various sonnet patterns, and perhaps more demanding than any other literary form. Several systematic rules have, however, aided me in word palindrome construction.

Compound Word Squares, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Readers of Harry Partridge's entertaining "Word-Crossed Characters" in this issue of Word Ways may not be aware that his 3-by-3 kanji crossword illustrates a new form of linguistic word play. It is best introduced by the English-language homologue given here.

Front Cover And Publication Information

Word Ways

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

High-Scoring Scrabble Revised, Kyle Corbin

Word Ways

In any game, the rules play a vital role. They are designed to make the game more enjoyable by eliminating controversy during the play. Thus, in any game the rules should be followed rigorously. Doing otherwise would not actually be playing the game -- it would be playing in a modified, less strict version.

A Ziticorumbatous 15-Square, Edward R. Wolpow

Word Ways

Considering the enormous difficulties encountered in the construction of large word squares, it is not surprising that the first 15-square ever found should require unusual words from obscure sources. However, success was assured with the aid of the fearsome Zong computer, and the square, with all words carefully defined, is given below.

Words Of State, Boris Randolph

Word Ways

Take the letters in the post office state abbreviations and place them in their proper places in the twenty-three four- and five-letter words defined below.

Occupational Redemption, Deedy Lederer, Richard Lederer

Word Ways

In "Occupational Hazards" in the February 1981 Word Ways, Richard E. Douglass suggests that various jobholders can be gotten rid of in ways more euphemistically ambiguous than simply being fired, canned, or sacked. For the most part, he plays upon the semantic properties of absorbed roots conjoined with the negative prefixes de- and dis- and shows how a nobleman would be discounted, distributed or subject to delivery and a tennis player disadvantaged or defaulted (or, we add, deserved or deduced).

In a more optimistic vein, let us ask ourselves how, using the prefix re- and the suffix -ed, we can …