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Articles 1831 - 1860 of 4911
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 36 Issue 3
Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 36 Issue 3
Word Ways
Front cover and publication information for this issue.
Lighter And Heavier, Susan Thorpe
Lighter And Heavier, Susan Thorpe
Word Ways
The weight of a word is determined by assigning A=1, B=2 through Z=26 and adding the letter values together. The density, or average letter value, of a word is found by dividing its weight by the number of letters in the word. Words with a low density are 'lightweight' words; those with a high density are 'heavyweight' words.
Kickshaws, David Morice
Medical Flowers, Horticultural Ailments, William E. Brandt Jr.
Medical Flowers, Horticultural Ailments, William E. Brandt Jr.
Word Ways
Looking through a gardening magazine, I noticed that the names of some of the plants sounded like diseases. Conversely, many medical conditions sound like the names of flowers or plants.
Dictionary Words, Leonard R. N. Ashley
Dictionary Words, Leonard R. N. Ashley
Word Ways
Compiling a dictionary of a very many words that are not in the dictionary - mine is a dictionary of sexual slang - I naturally reflected on the words that do ordinarily get published. Most people say the average lexicons include too many useless "dictionary words" and by that they mean that you never hear or even read such words, that the words are only for lexicographers (and take up space in the lexicon that could better be used by words that are censored or squeezed out now although they are found in everyday use).
Importunate Permutation: Aphorstical Parochialist, Stuart Kidd
Importunate Permutation: Aphorstical Parochialist, Stuart Kidd
Word Ways
The title and appellation above illustrate the apposite felicity in felicitous apposition of transposals in sets. Anil, Richard Lederer and Susan Thorpe among others, have looked at this area either directly or tangentially in these pages in recent years. My purpose here is to present a robus but necessarily subjective presentation of many curious, delightful, absurd and otherwise interesting examples of the genre.
Fibonacci Words
Word Ways
In the November 2002 Kickshaws, Dave Morice introduced the idea of using the Fibonacci sequence to generate all 676 bigrams in fourteen closed loops. Ross Eckler in the current issue points out the lovely symmetry and underlying mathematics of the fascinating pattern Dave found. Dave also noted several words embedded in six of the loops, mostly three-letter words with three of four letters.
The Speculation Puzzle, Jeremiah Farrell
The Speculation Puzzle, Jeremiah Farrell
Word Ways
The SPECULATION puzzle is an (11,3) word configuration using the eleven words OUI, PUN, UTE, COP, LOT, SIC, LIP, SAL, TAN, ACE, and SEN. The puzzle is to arrange the words on the eleven nodes of the graph so that every "line" of three (either on a straight line segment or on the eleven nodes of the graph) so that every "line" of three (either on a straight line segment or on an arc) contains three words with a single letter in common. See "Puzzles and Games on Word Configurations" in the November 2001 issue of Word Ways for details …
Text With Each Word Used Just Once, A. Ross Eckler
Text With Each Word Used Just Once, A. Ross Eckler
Word Ways
Doug Nufer's Never Again, a novel of approximately 40 thousand words, is by far the longest text in which no word is repeated. In the Feb 1995 Word Ways I published a two-hundred-word essay on this topic, using each word only once, and noted that H.J. Verschuyl had created a document of similar length in Dutch, reprinted in Battus's Opperlandse taal- & letterkunde (Querido, 1981). The longest-known accidental text is a 66-word window from Rudyard Kipling's "Brother Square-Toes" in Rewards and Fairies, reported by Mike Keith in the Nov 2002 Word Ways.
Hypersyllabic And Oligosyllabic Words, Hugo Brandt Corstius
Hypersyllabic And Oligosyllabic Words, Hugo Brandt Corstius
Word Ways
Syllables in Dutch words have an average length of three letters. When a word has 48 letters, like thoraxchirugenconcurrentieverhoudingencommissie, we expect it to have 16 syllables. But logophiles are not interested in averages, they long for extreme cases. How long, and how short, can a Dutch word of seven syllables be? The longest lemma in the Dictionary of the Nederlandic Language (1882-1999) is handboogschuttersmaatschappij (29 letters). It has the same number of syllables as the 12-letter word operationele.
Singularly Imperfect Tautonyms, Susan Thorpe
Singularly Imperfect Tautonyms, Susan Thorpe
Word Ways
Singularly Imperfect Tautonyms (SITS for short) are what I call words like NIGHTLIGHT in which a single letter in the second half of the word differs from the letters in the corresponding position in the first half of the word. Thus a single letter prevents NIGHTLIGHT from being a tautonym (NIGHTNIGHT). The SIT MENDMENT is prevented by a single letter from being a tautonymic sequence, rather than a tautonym, MENDMEND not being a word. For the purpose of this article, I do not distinguish between these two types of SITS. As a genre, SITS are only to be found amongst …
Number-Names Revisited, Rex Gooch
Number-Names Revisited, Rex Gooch
Word Ways
This revision upgrades one area of the original article, published on pages 83-90 of the May 2003 issue of Word Ways, and clarifies another area.
600 Transposals Of Uk Place Names, Darryl Francis
600 Transposals Of Uk Place Names, Darryl Francis
Word Ways
The May 1990 issue of Word Ways carried an article of mine entitled "London Wordplay". This was an examination of transposals, transadditions, beheadments and a variety of other wordplay based on place names in and around London, England.
Vowel Tetragrams Revisited, Susan Thorpe
Vowel Tetragrams Revisited, Susan Thorpe
Word Ways
A Vowel Tetragram (VT) is a group of 4 vowels unbroken by any consonants. There are 625 different VTs (125 beginning with each of A, E, I, O, and U), ranging from AAA, AAAE through UUUO, UUU. Words which contain a VT can be called Vowel Tetragram Words (VTWs). Relatively few words in current everyday usage include a VT. AQUEOUS, QUEUE, ONOMATOPOEIA, COOEE, HAWAIIAN and SEQUOIA are perhaps the most familiar.
Aeiou: 120 Known Human Beings, Eric Chaikin
Aeiou: 120 Known Human Beings, Eric Chaikin
Word Ways
Supervocalies are words or phrases with AEIOU once each, and no Ys. This is the first of a 3-part series examining complete sets of supervocalic people, places and things. The goal was to find known human beings - reasonably famous supervocalic people - for each of the 120 ordering of AEIOU. After copious amounts of Google searching, the feat has been accomplished.
The Heptcat's Other Trick, Jim Puder
The Heptcat's Other Trick, Jim Puder
Word Ways
In the February 2003 Word Ways, the HeptCat Perspicuous Palindrome Producer was introduced as a device for the semi-automatic generation of over 200 billion different palindromic sentences. But that is not the HeptCat's only palindromical talent; this cat of seven segments also has the latent ability to engender indefinitely long, grammatical, multi-sentence passages that are end-to-end palindromes.
Never Again, Doug Nuffer
Never Again, Doug Nuffer
Word Ways
This is the title of a novel of approximately 40,000 words in which no word is repeated; the full test can be found on ubu.com/contemp/nufer.pdf. It relates the adventures of George Raymond ("When the racetrack closed forever I had to get a job" is the first sentence). The book is filled with vivid word-pictures using language reminiscent of James Joyce.
Nine-Square Round-Up, Rex Gooch
Nine-Square Round-Up, Rex Gooch
Word Ways
This article briefly surveys previous findings, then presents new quality nine-squares. Next, it presents squares with diagonal words to add to those previously published by me. Finally, it looks at the most popular top row words, and also at the most popular words in any position.
Answers And Solutions
Word Ways
Answers and solutions to the puzzles and games contained in this issue.
The Titania Acrostic Revisited, James Kovalick
The Titania Acrostic Revisited, James Kovalick
Word Ways
In the August 1985 issue of Word Ways, the editor noted that the words in Act III, Scene I of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" which Titania speaks, acrostically form the word T I T An I A which is her name. arguing that these letters are statistically unlikely to have appeared by accident, he asserted that this is evidence that Shakespeare intentionally arranged the acrostic.
Compass Curios, Christopher Mcmanus
Compass Curios, Christopher Mcmanus
Word Ways
"Compass roses" is an appropriate name for diamond-shaped word sets, where the four extremities are the letters N, E, S, and W, in appropriate order. Compass roses of axis-length 5 and 7 are fairly simple to construct. No fully satisfactory compass rose of length 9 was found.
The Fibonacci Alphabet, A. Ross Eckler
The Fibonacci Alphabet, A. Ross Eckler
Word Ways
The Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89 144 233 277, ...) is perhaps the most famous one in the mathematics, known for at least 700 years and the subject or a quarterly journal during the last 40. (In the sequence, each term in the sum of the preceding two terms.) It is the purpose of the note to describe in more detail a curious relationship between Fibonacci and the alphabet, brought to the attention of Word Ways readers by Dave Morice in the November 2002 Kickshaws.
Webster's Third And The 20th Century, Darryl Francis
Webster's Third And The 20th Century, Darryl Francis
Word Ways
To what extent can year dates be found in Webster's Third? Year dates are scattered throughout Webster's Third, in definitions and in etymologies, ranging from many thousands of years BC to the very recent. Here's a slimmed-down version of the entry for BULL MOOSE.
The Acronym Continues To Inspire Creatively Abbreviated Language (Tactical), Don Hauptman
The Acronym Continues To Inspire Creatively Abbreviated Language (Tactical), Don Hauptman
Word Ways
My 1993 book Acronymaia (Dell, Intrepid Linguist Library) explored the lure and lore of abbreviations - historically, liguistically and humorously. Examples, both genuine and facetious, populated its page.
Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 36 Issue 2
Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 36 Issue 2
Word Ways
Front cover and publication information for this issue.
Definitive Anagrams: A-C
Word Ways
Word Ways Monograph #5, "up/dn", includes nearly nine hundred definitive anagrams, sampled by the editor in "The Oz Contradictionary" I and II (Feb. & Aug. '01). These transposals, single or poly, approximate synonyms or definitions of the target word or phrases. Perhaps by trope, contrast, slang or dialect but not by a mere property or example unless stereotypic or multiple. However, such affinitives may be added to definitives for amplification, comment or humour.
Shortest Words Containing A Given Number Of Number-Names
Shortest Words Containing A Given Number Of Number-Names
Word Ways
Following my article Number Names contained in Words and Phrases in November 2001, the editor asked if I could find shorter words containing as many number-names as possible.
Castaway Numbers, David Morice
Castaway Numbers, David Morice
Word Ways
Although I'm interested in math, I've heard and read that the only math left to discover is in the airy range at the top of a mountain of other numbers and number systems. When I was in high school, I didn't know that, so I made up seven math systems of my own. Later, in college, I was told that three were unnecessary, three were already known, and one might be new. I soon learned that it didn't even matter, because one has to be a research mathematician at a university in order for math journals to be interested in …