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Articles 1021 - 1050 of 4911
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
Spoonerism Riddles, Will Shortz
Spoonerism Riddles, Will Shortz
Word Ways
Last summer on my weekly puzzle segment on NPR's "Weekend Edition Sunday" I ran a creative competition involving spoonerism riddles. Listeners were invited to submit original riddles in which each answer involved a spoonerism.
A Poem, Martin Gardner
Post-Its -- 1, Steve Kahan
Post-Its -- 1, Steve Kahan
Word Ways
The building blocks for this vocabulary quiz are provided courtesy of the United States Postal Service. For instance, given the clue "misnomers", the requisite response is formed by concatenating the official two-letter abbreviations of the states of California, Colorado, New York, and Mississippi to produce CA CO NY MS The first dozen examples solicit six-letter words made up of three two-letter abbreviations, while the final quartet has answers that are each eight letters in length and thus require four such abbreviations. To facilitate the discovery process, all required blocks have been supplied, with the number of times each appears indicated …
Answers And Solutions
Word Ways
Answers and solutions to the puzzles contained in this issue.
Some Words To The Wise: A Book Review, Karen Farrell
Some Words To The Wise: A Book Review, Karen Farrell
Word Ways
A book review of Steven Kahan's Some Words to the Wise: Sixty More Adventures in Logology for the Connoisseur.
Punk Whiz 13, A. Anil
Punk Whiz 13, A. Anil
Word Ways
Another Pun Quiz of misdefinitions, which usually also hint at the actual meanings. In parentheses are the letters in the answer: (5|4) is a charade, a nine letter word that splits into a five plus four letter pun. My answers are out back.
A Poem, Martin Gardner
The Alphanumeric Properties Of Hyperpolygraphemic Oligosyllables, T.A. Hall
The Alphanumeric Properties Of Hyperpolygraphemic Oligosyllables, T.A. Hall
Word Ways
In a recent article in this journal (Word Ways, August 2003), Hugo Brandt Corstius examines the connection between the number of letters in a word and the number of syllables it contains. Basing his observations on Dutch, he coins the term 'oligosyllabic', which he defines as a word in which the number of letters is more than four times greater than the number of its syllables.
Scrabble-Tile Double Word Squares And Rectangles, Mike Keith
Scrabble-Tile Double Word Squares And Rectangles, Mike Keith
Word Ways
What is the largest double word square or rectangle (containing a different English word in each row and column) that can be formed from the 98 non-blank Scrabble tiles? The purpose of this article is explore, and give the answers to, questions like this in which the common word-play form of the word rectangle is constrained by the number of tiles of each letter available in the game of Scrabble.
A Magic Tour, Jeremiah Farrell
A Magic Tour, Jeremiah Farrell
Word Ways
The map depicts a tour of several U.S. cities and it turns out to have a curious magical property. We invite the reader to join the magic tour at any city of his or her choice. Starting with your chosen city, spell the name of that city counterclockwise along the tour until you arrive at a city to spend the night.
Pseudoantonyms, A. Anil
Pseudoantonyms, A. Anil
Word Ways
Pseudoantonyms or contrantonyms are pairs of apparent antonyms that instead are synonyms of sorts. The two forms must be able to be the same part of speech. For example, tied up and tied down by the Lilliputians. Pseudoanyonyms are not to be confused with Susan Thorpe's double negative Pseudo-opposites in the November 2010 Kickshaws.
Teaching Lexicography And Lexicology Among The Aliterates, John Taylor
Teaching Lexicography And Lexicology Among The Aliterates, John Taylor
Word Ways
As I pondered how to frame the topic announced in the title of this paper, I realized that first of all I had to embark on a journey of intellectual archaeology. In the nine different courses I regularly teach, in composition, literature, and linguistics courses alike, I emphasize the use of a desk dictionary as a curricular survival tool, especially in this current mania of standardized testing. When exactly did I begin to have my deep, abiding passion for dictionaries and how did that influence the development of my career as a professor of English and applied English Linguistics? For …
Numerical Charades Part 4, Susan Thorpe
Numerical Charades Part 4, Susan Thorpe
Word Ways
Numerical Charades Part 4 introduces a new type of numerical tautonym. The letters of the word TABLE, for example, assigned their alphabetical values (a=1, b=2 ... z=26), make 20.1.2.12.5. By splitting TABLE into two parts, specifically TA and BLE, and using the 2 functions + and -, T-A=19 and B+L+E also =19, making TA.BLE a numerical tautonym represented by 19.19. The words listed below use 2 or more of the four functions + - x ÷ and parentheses where necessary. A particular function can be used any number of times. A word can be split at any point along …
Look Back!, A. Ross Eckler
Look Back!, A. Ross Eckler
Word Ways
In the August 1986 Word Ways, Willard Espy presented a clever poem with its modus operandi explained in the last three lines.
Front Cover And Publication Information
Front Cover And Publication Information
Word Ways
Front cover and publication information for this issue, including a table of contents.
Sherlockiana, Dana Richards
Sherlockiana, Dana Richards
Word Ways
Word Puzzles selected from "Victorian Engimas and Sherlockian Puzzles" by the author.
A Christmas Wish, Simon Nightingale, Bridget Nightingale
A Poem, J. James Mancuso
Deep Acrostics, A. Anil
Deep Acrostics, A. Anil
Word Ways
Acronyms use the first letter of each word of a name. Diacronyms instead use the first two letters of names. While not yet called that, they featured in "Short People" in the November issue. Diacrostics are diacronyms of whole sentences. Unlike aconyms, which usually have to be defined and memorised, diacrostics may be -- and triacrostics often are -- directly readable, especially if the context is known, the language is simple, or the sentence is a familiar quotation.
Magic In Six Dimensions, Jeremiah Farrell
Magic In Six Dimensions, Jeremiah Farrell
Word Ways
A royal flush in poker consists of the ace, king, queen, jack and ten, all in the same suit. Our magic begins by having the spectator choose one of the cards in any of the four royal flushes. This choice could be by random draw or the spectator can merely think of one of the 20 cards. In either case he does not inform the magician of his choice but will write it on a slip of paper for future reference.
Flagging Spirits, Ronnie B. Kon
Flagging Spirits, Ronnie B. Kon
Word Ways
In the February 2010 Look Back! column, Ross Eckler renews his wife Faith's request from the August 1981 Kickshaws for an answer to a riddle from a 1831 British publication. He notes that a year's subscription to Word Ways was offered for the solution, but that it went unclaimed. Apropos of nothing, one wonders whether that means that the offer is still open.
Martin Gardner Et La Poesie, Alain Zalmanski
Martin Gardner Et La Poesie, Alain Zalmanski
Word Ways
Celebration of Mind: Gathering for Gardner
Arbitrary Words, Susan Thorpe
Arbitrary Words, Susan Thorpe
Word Ways
This is a sequel to Unusual Words (Word Ways 2008145) which examines words with single like letters having different pronunciations, thus being represented by different phonetic symbols. Arbitrary Words looks at words with two like bigrams which have different pronunciations and different phonetic symbols. ARBITRARY is one such word, the first AR being pronounced as the A in bath, but the second AR as the AR in arise. Words in which one of the two bigram letters is represented by the same phonetic symbol in both bigrams are not included.
Name Categories, Lacey Echols
Name Categories, Lacey Echols
Word Ways
To begin, write your last name across the top of the grid. You should have enough columns for each letter in your name. For each category in the left column, fill in the cells with a word beginning with the letter in the top row. If duplicate letters appear in the top row, then you should think of two different words for that category. Additional categories could be added or exchanged for the ones below.
Punk Whiz 12, A. Anil
Punk Whiz 12, A. Anil
Word Ways
Another Pun Quiz. The misdefinitions usually also hint at the actual meanings, as in cryptic crosswords.
Dictionary Of American Regional English: Some Transposals, Darryl Francis
Dictionary Of American Regional English: Some Transposals, Darryl Francis
Word Ways
When the American Dialect Society (ADS) was founded in 1889, one of the major goals of its charger members was to do for the United States what Joseph Wright was doing for England in compiling his English Dialect Dictionary. But of course the task of making a dictionary of the dialects of the United States was going to be a lot bigger because of the size of the country. So the Society began by publishing word lists made by professors who jotted down unfamiliar terms or expressions as they visited places new to them. For decades, lists were published …
"Redun-Dances": Humorous Redundancies, Don Hauptman
"Redun-Dances": Humorous Redundancies, Don Hauptman
Word Ways
For many years, I have archly interpolated into written and spoken communications what I call "redun-dances": redundancies used deliberately for humorous effect.