Digital Commons Network^™

The Oed Misinterpreted, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

Back in 1965, Dmitri Borgmann pronounced that PREDETERMINIST was not the kind of word that you could find in a dictionary (see p 87 of Language on Vocation).

Statistics Of Word Neighbours, Rex Gooch

Word Ways

The word reported here was undertaken during preparation of an article on Word Ladders: I felt in need of some facts to direct my efforts, and to clarify some remarks others had made. This article presents the frequency of occurrence of some types of words, and compares this to a "theoretical" frequency. The theoretical frequencies are based upon very simple assumptions. Nevertheless in some cases the predictions are quite good: in other cases I seek to find why the predictions are poor.

Editorial

Word Ways

As it completes its thirtieth year of publication -- long than most cottage - industry magazines -- Word Ways faces a crisis. Post office regulations require at least 200 paid subscriptions in order to qualify for a second-class mailing permit.

Palimericks, James Puder

Word Ways

Limericks and palindromes both being popular forms of linguistic recreation, it occurred to me to wonder whether the two could be salutarily combined. Is it possible to compose a decent limerick which is also an end-to-end palindrome? And if so, is it worth the trouble?

Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 30 Issue 3

Word Ways

Front cover and publication information for this issue.

Robin's Gazette-Free Lipogram, Howard Richler

Word Ways

Lipograms are defined by Webster's Third New International Dictionary as "a writing not having a certain letter" but this definition is not satisfactory. In short passages it is not uncommon for some of the less common letters of the alphabet, such as X and Z, not to appear. Also, by common convention the letter or letters that do not appear are supposed to be common letters for the passage to be considered a lipogram.

Kickshaws, Dave Morice

Word Ways

A collection of linguistic kickshaws.

Self-Descriptive Euler Magic Squares, Leonard Gordon

Word Ways

In the November 1996 Word Ways, I introduced the Euler square (almost known as a Graeco-Latin square), which is by its method of construction automatically magic. All rows and columns add up to a common sum since they merely consists of rearrangements of the same basic components.

Some New -Gry Words, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

Previous issues of Word Ways have made much of words ending in the three letters -GRY. The subject has occurred several times over the years, but the fullest lists of -GRY words appeared in the November 1989 and February 1990 articles by George Scheetz and Murray Pearce, respectively. The exact number of -GRY words therein is unclear, but it's probably at least eighty. Uncertainty arises depending on whether "gry" and "Gry" are counted as one or two words, and so on.

Back Cover

Word Ways

Instructions to authors wishing to contribute to Word Ways.

The Suet Alphabet, Nyr Indictor

Word Ways

Take the word WORD. Add an N, and you can make DROWN, add an S and you can make WORDS or SWORD. Add a J and you get... well, nothing, actually, because no combinations of the letters WORDJ make a word. Are there any words that can combine with a J to make a new word? Of course: SAW + J = JAWS; BAA + J = BAJA, etc. Are there any words that can combine with any of the 26 letters to make a new word? Such a word would be a universal recipient, like someone who has type …

Dual Cryptograms, M. Douglas Mcilroy

Word Ways

Newspaper cryptograms are usually easy to solve. They may get hard when they're made of words with unusual letter statistics. But no matter how hard they are, when you solve them, you can be sure you got the right answer. Cryptograms longer than about 30 letters (known to codebreakers as the 'unicity distance') just don't have two solutions. Or do they?

Geometrical Words: Part 1, Susan Thorpe

Word Ways

The letters which make the three words ALL WEDDED and SERENENESS (or it could be NAGNAGGING!) occur in the ratios 2:1, 3:2:1 respectively. These words can be shown diagrammatically with like letters in the same rows.

The Stutter Game, Oren N. Dalton

Word Ways

Ross Eckler's article "Wright, Write, 'Rite' Right" in the February 1997 Word Ways reminded me of a game I and a friend, Scott Hancock, invented over rum and cokes about ten years ago. Inspiration was provided by a very pretty young woman. Helen Solis, a musician in the El Paso Symphony Orchestra along with Scott. During a break she asked if anyone had heard about the zookeeper Neumann who had nursed a pregnant wildebeest through birth: as a consequence, the NEW GNU KNEW NEUmann.

Varieties Of Balanced Words, Part 1, Rex Gooch

Word Ways

In making the Alphabet Dance (MAD), Ross Eckler describes a number of types of words designated partly or wholly by the word "balanced". I discovered this after I thought I had almost finished this article, and had to have a major re-think (rewrite!). Not only are there a number of varieties of the type of word I thought was called "balanced", but the terms seems to be applied to entirely different types of word, linked only by the use of the letter values A=1, B=2, etc.

Fledge Ledge Edge, Jan Anderson

Word Ways

This edition does it for our introduction of elfish wordplay forms, bringing the list to forty. Although there are far more, it's time for solo flight, the ledge edge is fledged, and the sky grows dark and flapping things headed south. (Mom?!) To help you through this sad departure, I've included several wordplays you can add to and work on until They come back.

Playing Hangman With A K.G.B. Senorita, Peter Newby

Word Ways

If you are one of the few who has never played the classic word guessing game of Hangman then may I suggest that you glance at either Pears Word Games or "The Mammoth Book of Word Games, both of which extol the virtues of attempting play at an adult level with 'difficult' words as well as providing the essential framework of action.

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

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

A Mess Essay, Mama Mia!, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Scarfin; Fatback challenges me to half-alphabetize Frost's Stopping by Woods, first boasting victory and second conceding defeat. This is not difficult to do; I show the possibilities with a single stanza apiece.

Upperlands In The Netherlands, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

I first heard of Dutch logology in the summer of 1979, when Martin Gardner forwarded to me an article on Dutch palindrome that was sent to him by Hugo Brandt Corstius, then a professor of linguistics at the Institute of General Linguistics at the University of Amsterdam. (This article, "Nepapen", was translated by George Levenbach and appeared in the November 1979 Word Ways.)

Colloquy

Word Ways

A collection of responses to previously published articles.

Information From The Highest Quarters, Thomas L. Bernard

Word Ways

We would think it rather odd if someone said "Follow me, please, I'll show you to your thirds". It would sound perfectly normal, however, if the statement was "Follow me, please, I'll show you to your quarters".

Don't Waste Words: Recycle!, Jan Anderson

Word Ways

Having lived in both New York and a rural state where the residents get up in arms whenever some local businessman or landowner applies for a landfill permit that will accept New York's waste, I'm sensitive to the dumb debate.

It's A Jumble Out There, James Puder

Word Ways

Dear Anabelle Van Landers:

These questions may be a bit out of the ordinary for your column, but I have never known you to fail a reader, and I am sure that you won't let me down. I am, frankly, nearing my wit's end, and you are my last hope.

Polygonal, Pyramidal, Prismatic Words, Rex Gooch

Word Ways

By considering the assignment of letters to points on plane figures and solids, this article provides a general classifications of words which includes, among other categories, words already known as isograms and pyramid words.

Equine Equivocations, Brooks H. Rohde

Word Ways

Editor's Note: In the late 1970s and early 1980s Rohde wrote hundreds of logological poems about horses, mostly palindromes and charades. In the following, the first half of the palindrome presents one point of view and the second its complement. The final poem is an example of Jusuitical verse (equivoque), common a century or more ago.

Colloquy

Word Ways

A collection of responses to previously published articles.

How Likely Are Duplicate Anagrams, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

If different people attempt to form anagrams of the same phrase, how likely are they to come up with the same one? (By "same" I mean the same set of words, perhaps arranged in a different order.) Some light is shed on this question by a corpus of several thousand anagrams constructed in 1993 by Games magazine readers in the "Mixed Reviews" contest (for examples, see the Word Ways issues of November 1994, February 1995 and May 1995). Certain movie titles were anagrammed by as many as 30 different contestants.

Pl8 Speek, The Language Of Vanity Plates, John Brooks Tenney

Word Ways

In states and provinces of North America, the popularity of vanity license plates appears to be increasing by leaps and bounds. Any trip can be enlivened by the simple pastime of collecting vanity tags en route. (On a drive between Washington and Richmond, one can expect to turn up at least thirty vanity tags.)

Alphabetic Clusters, Jeff Grant

Word Ways

The challenge is to find 26 words, each using a separate letter of the alphabet as many times as possible.