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Articles 1171 - 1200 of 4911
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
Bishop Spooner Goes On Holiday, A Anil
Bishop Spooner Goes On Holiday, A Anil
Word Ways
First stop, Australia. (AIL, AUSTRALIA!) His reaction: Australia? STRAY, ALL YA! Surprisingly, he gave all eight Oz capital cities good loving (?) Spoonfuls, some cognates.
Odd One Out, Susan Thorpe
Odd One Out, Susan Thorpe
Word Ways
This article investigates 10-letter words which consist of the same letters (in any order) in their first and second halves except for one letter, the 'odd one out'. In SEPTUPLETS, the letters S, E, P, and T are repeated in the second half of the word; L is the odd one out. This is a perfect example, the word is solid, familiar and all the letters of the first half are different. In many cases, however, the same letter appears twice within either, or both, the first and second halves of the word. Where this happens, as …
Answers And Solutions
Word Ways
Answers and solutions to the puzzles contained in this issue.
Theology, A Anil
Theology, A Anil
Word Ways
It's a charade, isn't it, how Believers consider the study of religion to be the ology. As a blasphemer, I instead requisition THEOLOGY to serve as a logological term for studies of the word THE. (IF you object, just call it the-ology.) For starters, I investigated how much mischief can be wrought by iinserting "the" into the midst of known names, eponyms or pseudo-eponyms. The first below started it all and is the model for the rest. I exclude boring examples involving personal nouns, like Eric the Ambler, unless there is an affinity, like James the Brown. While most have …
Down But Not Out!, Oscar Thumpbindle
Anagrams And The Birthday Problem, A. Ross Eckler
Anagrams And The Birthday Problem, A. Ross Eckler
Word Ways
In his landmark book An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications (Wiley, 1950), William Feller describes the birthday problem, showing how to calculate the probability that in a given group of people at least two share the same month-and-day birthday. (For 23 people, this probability exceeds one-half.) Instead of talking about people sharing birthdays, one can consider words sharing letter distributions; two words having the same distribution are anagrams. It is easy to mathematically derive the probability that two or more share a birthday because the 365 possible birthdays are equally likely to occur. The analogous anagram probability is …
Atlas Shrugged, Oscar Thumpbindle
The Vinturi, Scot Morris
The Vinturi, Scot Morris
Word Ways
Do you drink red wine?
A new wine-aerator has come along that is astounding in its effect. If I were still writing the Games column in OMNI I would do one about this. The inventor is one Rio Sabadicci who lives 20 miles away and I have interviewed him.
Some Irregular Haiku, A Anil
Some Irregular Haiku, A Anil
Word Ways
These poems have 17 syllables but unapologetically fail the 5-7-5 line pattern for haiku. Let me unapologise. Japanese haiku in English translation also usually fail that test and must even be teased into 17 syllables. To the purist I say: only Japanese haiku, untranslated, are true haiku.
Sudoku Lines Factorised, Jeremy Morse
Sudoku Lines Factorised, Jeremy Morse
Word Ways
It is a demerit of Sudoku that there is nothing of memorable interest in the final diagram, once the pleasure of solving is over. One way to mitigate this is to factorise individual lines, each of which containes the nine digits unrepeated.
Exchanging Antonyms, Susan Thorpe
Exchanging Antonyms, Susan Thorpe
Word Ways
Antonyms have long been favourites of the readers of Word Ways, either as themselves (ODD-EVEN) or in disguise. In the latter case, they may be hidden in other word pairs such as in FATE - THINE, SHIN - SHOUT and BANDED - BORED where they occur at the beginnings, ends and in the middles of the word pairs respectively, the other letters remaining the same.
Cryptic Puzzle, Oscar Thumpbindle
Punderful Etymologies, Richard Lederer
Punderful Etymologies, Richard Lederer
Word Ways
Scoffing at puns is a conditioned reflex, and through the centuries groan-ups have aimed a steady barrage of libel and slander at pun ladies and pun gents. Three hundred years ago, the playwright and critic John Dennis sneered, "A pun is the lowest form of wit." Many of you Verbatim readers know me as an incorrigible punster - please don't incorrige! - who agrees with the witty Henry Erskine that a pun is indeed the lowest form of wit because it is the foundation of all wit. For me and my many pun pals, punning is a rewording experience that, …
Front Cover, Publication Information
Front Cover, Publication Information
Word Ways
Front Cover, Publication Information, Table of Contents
Triangular Progressions, Susan Thorpe
Triangular Progressions, Susan Thorpe
Word Ways
Consider the word QUILLS. Arrange the letters, in order, to make a triangle.
Book Review, Timothy M. Rogers
Book Review, Timothy M. Rogers
Word Ways
This is a selection from Sé Verla Al Revés, Editorial Praxis, Club Palindromico International, Primera Edición, 2008. It is a collection of palindromes in various languages.
The New Model Five-Jog Knight, Jim Puder
The New Model Five-Jog Knight, Jim Puder
Word Ways
Now lumbering into the lists comes the New Model Five-Jog Knight - no, not some odd-gaited Cromwellian cavalryman, but a new, improved, larger, shinier and more complete version of the vanquished old Five-Jog Knight (who now, in the newcomer's brilliance, seems a knight light indeed). As a puzzle, the New Model looks to be an even thornier challenge than its less pointy predecessor, accoutered with no fewer than 16 new pathways (omitted by oversight from the old model) in its network, it boasts nearly twice as many nodes, network segments and total letters.
Word Squares, Alain Zalmanski, Nicolas Graner
A Poem, Martin Gardner
Aaddeennoorr, Darryl Francis
Aaddeennoorr, Darryl Francis
Word Ways
According to Wikipedia: "Dronedarone (also known as SR33589 or Multaq) is a drug under development by Sanofi-Aventis, mainly for the indication of cardiac arrhythmias (irregular heartbeat)."
Word Worm Maze, Mark J. P. Wolf
Word Worm Maze, Mark J. P. Wolf
Word Ways
Starting with the "A" in the upper left-hand corner, find a word by moving adjacently letter to letter, horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, one letter at a time. When you reach the last letter of the word, move to an adjacent letter and start the next word, and continue doing so until you reach a word ending in "Z" in the lower right-hand corner.
Kickshaws, David Morice
A Poem, Martin Gardner
Words' Worth: A Review Of Alphabet Juice, Don Hauptman
Words' Worth: A Review Of Alphabet Juice, Don Hauptman
Word Ways
A new book about language is always cause for rejoicing, especially when it celebrates both the serious and the humorous aspects of words.
Magic With Bizarre Poems, Martin Gardner
Magic With Bizarre Poems, Martin Gardner
Word Ways
A strange collection of poems entitled Shadows in the Moonlight, was written and privately printed in Los Angeles in 1927 by T. page Wright, a Hollywood script writer. Wright was a skillful amateur magician who wrote the poems so that the book could be used for performing a feat of mental magic. Each of the 22 poems is so constructed that the nineteenth word is "rose" and the thirty-first word is "love." The book originally sold in magic stores for five dollars, but is now extremely scarce.
Prefix Meals, Don Hauptman
Prefix Meals, Don Hauptman
Word Ways
Below, a fresh batch of entertaining mistakes and anomalies followed by witty ripostes - assembled for my book in progress, the working title of which is To "Er ..." is Human. Contributions, to the above address, are welcome.
Return To Albuquerque, Steve Kahan
Return To Albuquerque, Steve Kahan
Word Ways
Another trip to Albuquerque, the logological mecca of the Southwest first encountered in Volume 41, Number 1 of Word Ways. Recall that an Albuquerque word contains two separated but identical letter triads. When these are removed and the remaining letters consolidated, what results is called the residue of the original word.
Punk Whiz 7, A Anil
Punk Whiz 7, A Anil
Word Ways
Yet another misdefinition pun quiz. Numbers in parentheses are the letters in the answer; (4|5) is a charade, a nine letter word that splits into a four plus five letter pun. My answers are out back.
Something In The Air, Jim Puder
Something In The Air, Jim Puder
Word Ways
The following ditties parody the popular songs "Rennies from Heaven," "I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover" and "Bye, Bye, Blackbird," respectively.