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A New Reference, Ramona J. Quincunx Aug 1975

A New Reference, Ramona J. Quincunx

Word Ways

In 1949, the G. & C. Merriam Company, then publishing the Second Edition of Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, issued a new publication, Webster's Geographical Dictionary. It was, on the surface, both a companion volume to Webster's Biographical Dictionary, first published in 1943, and an expansion of the Gazetteer in the unabridged dictionary, a section that then embraced only 30,000 names, compared with about 40,000 in the new and independent reference work.


Punctured Poetry, Mary J. Youngquist, Harry W. Hazard Aug 1975

Punctured Poetry, Mary J. Youngquist, Harry W. Hazard

Word Ways

In the February 1975 Kickshaws, Dave Silverman introduced Word Ways readers to Richard Armour's Punctured Poems (Prentice-Hall, 1966), a literary tour de force in which implausible second lines are appended to famous first lines. Actually,t his concept has been around awhile, and has been independently discovered by many people.


Difference Words Ride Again, Tom Pulliam Aug 1975

Difference Words Ride Again, Tom Pulliam

Word Ways

What is a difference word? The concept can best be introduced by an example. The letters of the word FORM occupy positions 6, 15, 18 and 13 in the alphabet. The difference between 6 and 15 is 9; between 15 and 18, 3; and between 18 and 13, 5. The letters of the word ICE occupy positions 9, 3 and 5 in the alphabet; therefore, ICE is the difference word of FORM.


A Classification Of Words, Maxey Brooke Aug 1975

A Classification Of Words, Maxey Brooke

Word Ways

One of the pleasures of the logologist is investigating the relations between pairs of words. Words can be characterized in four ways: spelling (or appearance), sound (or pronunciation), meaning (or definition), and origin (or derivation). Two words can be either identical or different with respect to each of these properties; thus, there are 16 different ways in which word-pairs can be classified, ranging from identical in all four respects to different in all four respects. The 14 intermediate cases, those in which a pair of words are identical in some respects but differ in others, are the ones of most …


The A-E-I-O-U-Y Problem, Darryl Francis Aug 1975

The A-E-I-O-U-Y Problem, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

The August 1968 Word Ways contained a short problem entitled Vowel Rotation which ran as follows.


Final Bigrams, Philip M. Cohen Aug 1975

Final Bigrams, Philip M. Cohen

Word Ways

In the May 1975 Word Ways, I presented a list of words (using open sources) utilizing those initial bigrams not covered by Dmitri Borgmann in "Zero Redundancy" in Beyond Language (Scribner's, 1967). In this article, I similarly extend "Zero Redundancy Rides Again", Darryl Francis's final bigram word list which was originally published in the August 1970 Word Ways. Of his 570 examples, I reject BN BW DF DK FH GC JC JM KC KQ NB QH QU UJ XK ZW for various reasons.


Answers And Solutions Aug 1975

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to the puzzles contained in this issue.


Slang Around The House, Leonard R. N. Ashley Aug 1975

Slang Around The House, Leonard R. N. Ashley

Word Ways

It's as safe as houses (perfectly certain) that you know the meaning of playhouse and opera house, jailhouse and outhouse, greenhouse and whorehouse, and maybe there's even someone in the house who can list such varieties of doss house as the scratch house and the flea house. But can you define each of these listed below? Some are easy -- and for others you will have to look up the definitions freely given, on the house, in Answers and Solutions at the end of this issue.


Instructions To Authors Aug 1975

Instructions To Authors

Word Ways

Instructions to authors wishing to contribute to the publication.


Successive De(Le(Ti)O)Ns, Tom Pulliam Aug 1975

Successive De(Le(Ti)O)Ns, Tom Pulliam

Word Ways

Fort hose unfamiliar with the concept, a successive word deletion is best defined by example. From a base word (PANTODON), excise a set of consecutive letters from the interior which form a word (TO). Join together the loose ends (PANDON) and repeat the process (AND). The letters remaining after the second excision (PON), containing the initial and terminal letters of the original word, form a third word. The number of words (in this case, three) into which the original word has been split is k; thus, PANTODON (TO, AND, PON) is a triple deletion.


Base Foreign Words, David Kahn Aug 1975

Base Foreign Words, David Kahn

Word Ways

As every computer programmer knows, numbers can be read in ways other than the decimal system we normally use. The decimal system is called "to the base ten" because it employs 10 digits: 0, 1, 2, ... , 9. But systems to different bases are also possible. Utopianists have proposed a duodecimal system using 12 "digits" because 12 is divisible by more factors (and hence mathematically handier) than 10. Computers use arithmetic to the base 2, because their circuitry admits of only two states -- on or off. Base 2 arithmetic employs only the digits 0 and 1.


Kickshaws, David L. Silverman Aug 1975

Kickshaws, David L. Silverman

Word Ways

Readers are invited to send kickshaws to the Associate Editor. Correspondents who wish a quick acknowledgement should enclose a self-addressed post card.


Front Cover, Publication Information Aug 1975

Front Cover, Publication Information

Word Ways

Front Cover, Publication Information, Table of Contents


Hard-To-Find Words In Web 3 (A-D), Ralph G. Beaman Aug 1975

Hard-To-Find Words In Web 3 (A-D), Ralph G. Beaman

Word Ways

The main purpose of a dictionary is to give information about words. One looks with some "word" in mind and either finds it exists by noting a boldface alphabetical entry for it; or, not finding it, concludes it does not exist. The latter conclusion is dangerous since the chosen dictionary may have elected to regard the word as too rare or obscene, it may have been missed, or the word sought is too new. There seems little excuse, however, for not listing words that in fact are given in boldface in the work. As this list proves, there are probably …


Automynorcagrams, Howard W. Bergerson Aug 1975

Automynorcagrams, Howard W. Bergerson

Word Ways

I have long ruminated over the problem of finding a logological form of composition as challenging and appealing as the palindrome, but in which (unlike the palindrome) any word could be used. The ideas that occurred to me all seemed deficient in one way or another. The logological interest of vocabularyclepts (anagramming the words of one poem into another) is dependent upon the existence of the parent poemfrom which they are made, and is nonexistent without them. Word-unit palindromes are an attractive possibility, but the composer must be resigned to the fact that "and the" implies "the and", to give …


An All-Consonant Crossword, Darryl Francis Aug 1975

An All-Consonant Crossword, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

In August 1973 we offered a crossword puzzle consisting solely of three-letter all-vowel (AEIOUY) words. Seeing this puzzle, Palmer Peterson of Lennox, South Dakota tried his hand at constructing an all-consonant puzzle using the same crossword pattern. We were most intrigued by his effort, but discovered that many of his words had been taken from references eighty years or more old. We decided to construct an all-consonant crossword using contemporary dictionaries, and evenly succeeded with the offering below, based solely on Webster's Second, Webster's Third, and The Oxford English Dictionary.


A 700-Word Palindrome, D. L. Polonsky Aug 1975

A 700-Word Palindrome, D. L. Polonsky

Word Ways

A palindrome of 700 words.


Front Cover, Publication Information May 1975

Front Cover, Publication Information

Word Ways

Front Cover, Publication Information, Table of Contents


Biliteral Crossword, E. S. Sande May 1975

Biliteral Crossword, E. S. Sande

Word Ways

A crossword puzzle.


Web 2: Imperfect But Lovable, Tom Pulliam May 1975

Web 2: Imperfect But Lovable, Tom Pulliam

Word Ways

Along with many other readers of Word Ways, I am a stanch admirer of Merriam-Webster's Second Edition. Unlike the austere and hospital-sterile Third Edition (the same genus, but a different species), it offers almost endless scope for the browser or the collector of curiousa. The things that most charm me can be broadly classified in two categories: inconsistencies or outright errors, and interesting definitions.


Piddletrenthide, Darryl Francis May 1975

Piddletrenthide, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

The London Times devotes a regular column to the reassignments of Church of England clerics. Buried among the announcements of August 21, 1974 was the following.


Colloquy May 1975

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.


A Survey Of Letter-Frequencies, Leslie E. Card, A. Ross Eckler May 1975

A Survey Of Letter-Frequencies, Leslie E. Card, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

If one asks the man in the street (or even the average reader of Word Ways) for a listing of letters by frequency of occurrence, he is likely to come up with the linotyper's nonsense-phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. More serious students of letter-frequencies, such as solvers of monoalphabetic substitution ciphers, are likely to point out in addition that the frequencies of certain letters are so nearly alike (for example, A and O, or N and R) that the ordering depends upon the sample of letters tabulated. Although most people will readily understand that the listing is based on a sample of …


Initial Bigrams, Philip M. Cohen May 1975

Initial Bigrams, Philip M. Cohen

Word Ways

To my mind, an ideal hardcore logology project should satisfy two conditions: (1) it should be hard enough to force the investigator out of the cozy Webster's Second Unabridged (NI2) and Third Unabridged (NI3) nook, and (2) it should promise complete success -- every last hole filled -- with persistence. AN excellent example is the problem of finding words beginning with each of the 676 possible two-letter combinations, or bigrams. This problem is covered in the section "Zero Redundancy" (ZR) in Dmitri Borgmann's Beyond Language (Scribner's, 1967). Unfortunately, while Dmitri claimed words for 629 of the combinations, he listed only …


I Cue The Alphabet, Joseph T. Shipley May 1975

I Cue The Alphabet, Joseph T. Shipley

Word Ways

A collection of words and phrases beginning with each of the letters.


The Political Scene, Dmitri A. Borgmann May 1975

The Political Scene, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

For some years, an investigation has been under way, looking into the logological characteristics of the names of the two major American political parties, the DEMOCRATIC and the REPUBLICAN parties. What follows is an interim report on the findings.


O.K., Ralph G. Beaman May 1975

O.K., Ralph G. Beaman

Word Ways

Railwayman OBEDIAH KELLY, it was said, put his initials on bills of lading to show that he had checked them as correct in his official position as railway freight agent.


Erotemes, Merlin X. Houdini Iv May 1975

Erotemes, Merlin X. Houdini Iv

Word Ways

If you have turned to this article expecting a discussion of erotic themes, you had best look elsewhere. Erotemes, you see, are question marks, and you are going to see a lot of question marks here.


Answers And Solutions May 1975

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to the puzzles contained in this issue.


Early American Word Puzzles (Part 4), William F. Shortz May 1975

Early American Word Puzzles (Part 4), William F. Shortz

Word Ways

By 1830, two major changes were evident in American puzzledom. First, miscellaneous word puzzles involving deletion and juggling of letters were becoming popular as never before. Many of them were unversed, but others were in poetic form. One puzzle from the Saturday Evening Post of September 22, 1827 is perhaps a good example of this new style.