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Rich Dutch Words, Hugo Brandt Corstius

Word Ways

For each letter the number of times that letter may occur in one Dutch word is given, plus the shortest word with that number of repetitions.

Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 35 Issue 2

Word Ways

Front cover and publication information for this issue.

Nine Square With Palindromic Diagonal, Rex Gooch

Word Ways

A few years ago, I produced a few thousand nine squares, but they have lain fallow since, as Chris Cole presented "Modern Nine-Squares" in November 2001 and Richard Sabey presented "A Collection of Nine-Squares" in February 1997. I did, however, look for a square with a word on the diagonal as well. Failing to find one among my few thousand or in Word Ways, I now take pleasure in presenting it, plus a small variation.

Word Wide Web, Susan Thorpe

Word Ways

Word Ways is a treasure trove of logologically-talented words, words such as HORSESHOER in which the letters of the first half of the word are repeated in the second half in a different order; the 5-letter IOUEA (WW May 1993), the only word made exclusively of one each of the five main vowels; and HAMAMELIDACEAE, seemingly the longest word made from first half of the alphabet letters.

Palindromic Relationship, Susan Thorpe

Word Ways

The year is 2002 and palindromic NAN is entertaining the idea of taking in a lodger again, despite the fact that her first lodger had been a disaster. His name was Rae and he'd been recommended by a friend. All credit to the friend, she did warn Nan that Rae was prone to hypochondria and somewhat of a doctor's nightmare. But, being Nan, she took pity on Rae. This very quickly proved to be a mistake and Rae didn't stay long! However, his short stay did enable us to demonstrate two types of palindromic poetry.

Visiting The State Capitals Yet Again, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

In the February 2002 Word Ways I explored trandeletions and transadditions of the names of the state capitals. How close could I get to finding 50 one-letter transdeletions? Where one-letter transdeletions could not be located, what were the fewest number of letters that needed to be deleted to effect a transdeletion? How close could I get to finding 50 one-letter transadditions? Where one-letter transadditions could not be located, what were the fewest number of letters that needed to be added to effect a transaddition? My previous article offered transdeletions for all 50 state capital names, involving deletion of a total …

Unseen Consonants, Steve Kahan

Word Ways

In the list of fifty words that follows, all of the vowels (A, E, I, O, and U) have been supplied. The blanks represent consonants (including Y) which appear in alphabetical order. For instance, he word - E -- O -- could stand for DEFROST, BEDPOST, or LEPROSY. Plurals are not permitted, so that - A -- E -- could not stand for BADGERS. Furthermore, no consonant can be repeated, so that I - E -- I -- could not stand for IDENTITY. Each of the first forty-four words have five missing consonants, while each of the remaining half-dozen has …

Words In Windows, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

In Language on Vacation, Dmitri Borgmann highlighted the 13-letter GIBBLEGABBLED and HIGGLEHAGGLED as the longest words with all their letters drawn from the first half of the alphabet, A-M. He also referred to the 11-letter NONSUPPORTS as the longest word with all of its letters drawn from the second half of the alphabet, N-Z.

Colloquy

Word Ways

A collection of responses to previously published articles.

Same Name Game, Don Hauptman

Word Ways

Have you ever observed that certain celebrities, historical figures, and other famous individuals happen ot share identical -- or very similar -- first and last names? For example, PAUL SIMON is the pop singer-composer, while another PAUL SIMON is the bow-tied former Illinois Senator. (Appearing with the Senator on CNN in 1995, comic Richard Belzer joked: "I have all his albums.")

The Oz Contradictionary: Part 5

Word Ways

This is an excerpt from a 98-page book, up/dn, a dictionary and contradictionary of wordplay including anagrams, palindromes and charades, privately published in 1999 by a retired Australian (Oz) biologist (see February 2001 Word Ways for details).

Palindrome Park, Jeff Grant

Word Ways

Palindrome Park is a very special place. It was established by billionaire nature-lover and palindrome fanatic Otto Markram at his retreat near Tassessat in the remote Air Mountains of Morocco. This unique botanical and zoological park has only 26 enclosures, each housing a different palindromic specimen. Some may surprise you - there are plants, animals, birds, fish, insects, and even a mythical creature!

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to the puzzles and games contained in this issue.

Onomastic Anomaly: New South Wales, Thomas I. Bernard

Word Ways

I have always been intrigued with the toponymic anomaly of the name of the Australian state of New South Wales. Obviously there are countless examples of toponyms that are preceded by the adjective New; these are, or were, usually in honor or remembrance of countries (New England, New Spain, New France, New Mexico, New Guinea, etc.) or cities (New York, New Orleans, New Rochelle, New London, New Paltz, etc.) . Clearly such names arose in response to newly settled or newly discovered places, but there are other reasons when New might have been used.

Noah's Consonants, Susan Thorpe

Word Ways

The title refers to he of the Ark as distinct from he of the dictionary. Noah's Ark is a honeymoon haven for words because Noah only admits those words in which each consonant has a partner. In practice he's even more picky, refusing entry to any such words with less than 3 different consonants (6 consonants in total). He also turns away hyphenated examples, phrases, coinages, palindromes, tautonyms and pair isograms. Here, we attempt to discover some of those words which have made it past Noah into the Ark.

Living Ten-Squares, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

"A New Approach to the Ten Square" in the February 2002 Word Ways unsuccessfully sought to construct a ten-square out of names such as Elmer Davis or James Smith, all belonging to living United States residents or deceased Social Security beneficiaries. Steve Root suggested that present-day computer power permits a more ambitious program: instead of processing independent 5X5 chunks of first and last names, why not construct full ten-squares consisting of names of all lengths.

Jesuit-Ignatius Palindromes, Jim Puder

Word Ways

Inigo de Onez y Loyola, St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), is famed as the founder of the Jesuit order of Roman Catholic clergy. The logologically noteworthy coincidence that the last four letters of "Ignatius" are the reversal of the last four letters of "Jesuit" or long challenged palindromists to devise some reasonably artistic palindromic passage that unites the two names. To date, a fully satisfactory formulation has proven to be frustratingly elusive. In I love Me, Vol. I, for example, Michael Donner offers "An Ignatius ejaculation's... [no ital! u.c.!] ... A JESUIT AGNINA!" and variations, and "Set, a Luca Jesuit …

Matched Terminal Deletions, Rex Gooch

Word Ways

In Kickshaws of Feb 2002, Dave Morice asked for words beginning and ending in the same letter, which revealed other words (say, core words) when the terminal letters were discarded. He asked for the longest source words beginning with each letter of the alphabet, in each of four categories: the revealed word reads forwards; reads backwards; reads a different word forwards from backwards (called "both" below, his example was STARS - TAR + RAT); and reads the same backwards and forwards (palindrome).

Kickshaws, David Morice

Word Ways

A collection of linguistic kickshaws.

Inconsonant Bigrams

Word Ways

Inconsonant Bigrams is what i call another wordplay form I've dabbled in, probably not original, that makes sentences out of bigrams in which the vowel and its position are constant and only the consonants are inconstant. This is sort of the inverse of Vowel Movements in the February 1998 Kickshaws, as well as "Vowel Cascades, Vowel Movements and Di-Odes" in the February 2002 Word Ways. (Perhaps a better name for Inconsonant Bigrams would be Consonant Movements.) Is there an official name for this?

How To Pack Months, Presidents And States, David S. Robinson

Word Ways

In the May 2001 issue of Word Ways, Ross Eckler showed how one could exhibit the names of the nine planets, each one in order, in only 26 letters: MNVESARCPJLUPITHURYOANUSER. In the August issue, Darryl Francis followed this up with letter chains of 19 and 23, respectively, containing the days of the week and the colors of the rainbow.

Eva: Palindromic Chaos In A Cave, Bill A. O'Connor

Word Ways

The dangers attendant on speleology have perhaps not been sufficiently emphasized. In one particularly gruesome incident, a spelunker dived into a cave pool, passed unawares through a subterranean passage, and emerged from the pool into an enclosed grotto. Being unable to find his way back with the pool disguising his whereabouts from the search party, he starved to death in the darkness.

Foldedness Factor In Letter Arrays, James Puder

Word Ways

An idle diversion with pencil and graph paper involves writing some ordered sequence of letters in the cells of a grid and searching the horizontal, vertical and diagonal rows of the resulting array for accidentally-formed new words. Since there is usually a multiplicity of possible ways to inscribe a given letter string into a grid, the question arises as to whether some inscription patterns are likely to be more productive of new words than others. Logic suggests that the answer is yes. Because any new words in the array must form along straight lines, and because no answer is yes. …

Dude, Not One Dud!, Win Emmons

Word Ways

Xxxx, X xxxx xxx I tell actor Lancaster that I'm ready for a massage

Xxxxxx xx Xxxxx'x xxxxx xxx? I muse: has George Bush's chief of staff been discharged?

C Can Cause Cancer, William Gillespie

Word Ways

epidemiological scientific research confirms

curious doctors' uncertain suspicions

medical researchers announce conclusions:

c can cause cancer

Bananagrams 17, Edmund Conti

Word Ways

Bananagrams--anagrams to drive you bananas--consist of rhymed couplets, each one containing a pair of anagrams to be solved. One of the rhyming words will always be an anagrams, and the couplet itself will offer clues to help solve the anagram. All of the bananagrams in this article have been borrowed form the late Bill Webster's One Wordy Guy.

Back Cover

Word Ways

Instructions to authors wishing to contribute to Word Ways.

Qing Pangrams, Alan G. Wagner

Word Ways

The word Qing, the name of the last Chinese dynasty (1644-1912), is frequently employed as an adjective, as in Qing porcelain. Used in a pangram, Qing has the obvious advantage of taking care of the Q while freeing up the U to be used elsewhere, resulting in 26-letter pangrams which make much better sense and use more familiar words than the ones I have seen. However, Qing does not appear as an entry in Merriam-Webster's Tenth New Collegiate (10C), Merriam-Webster's Third New International (NI3), or the Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition (OED). 10C does have an entry for Ching (or …

Gull-Day-Looks Enter Tree Bars, William E. Brandt

Word Ways

Wants pond term dare worsted ladle gull wit surge putty you low coils date peephole culled hire Gull-day-looks. Gully-day-looks lipped wit hire mutter inner ladle coat hedge knee rah eye bag four rest. Wine over Gull-day-looks axed oaf sheik cud gopher awoke enter bag four rest, hire mutter wood hallways sign, "Sir teen lie knot! Day bag four rest aster ding jar us, eats fouled with wee kid bars slack tweet ladle gulls."

No Gnus Is Good Gnus, Jim Puder

Word Ways

A gnu is a large, stocky antelope whose seeming ambition is to be a cow. Distinctive for its bizarre rocking-horse running motion, this oddly-formed even-toed ungulate has been described as being made up of parts left over from other animals, an assessment that is probably unfair to other animals. But although their doll appearance may endear gnus (or"gnu"; either pluralization is correct) to the public at large, few palindromists are ever charmed to find a gnu noshing nonchalantly in their word gardens; indeed, their more usual reaction to such a discovery is to, well, have a gnu.