Digital Commons Network^™

Tiling By Computer, Leonard Gordon

Word Ways

Making the Alphabet Dance describes on p 214 lettering the 20 vertices of a dodecahedron with 20 different letters so that the five letters surrounding each of the 12 faces can be anagrammed into a word.

Letter Frequencies And Word Lengths, Rex Gooch

Word Ways

In trying to find an explanation for a certain phenomenon, I decided to compare the frequencies of letters in a certain group of words with some norm. I was not too happy with available lists because of their small sample size, and also because it was difficult to see whether differences in rank between different lists were significant. Therefore I made my own. The table in the article is compiled from approximately 7 million letters in my large 'dictionary' (compared with, for example, the 10 thousand letters of running text, not dictionary words, of Helen Gaines in Cryptanalysis).

More Phallicdromes, Win Emmons

Word Ways

AN, I GAVE POPE VAGINA

Computer pioneer's mistress admits to a Roman romance

Alphabet Plus Alpha, Nyr Indictor

Word Ways

In Japanese, the English phrase "plus alpha" (pronounced purasu aruha) has come to mean "and then some". It is in this sense that the title is intended. Pursuing the concept that two alphabets are better than one, I created an alphabet of words to which the letter A may be added to form a new word.

Fledge Ledge Edge, Jan Anderson

Word Ways

Some readers supposed that the flying elf my mother Dode saw (February Fledge Ledge Edge) was the Deified New Bybwen Flex Elf. Not so. It was her own doppelganger, the Flee Elf, an unacknowledged projection of her Flesh Self. Everyone has one, though the flying ones (sadly, a fugue state) are harder to catch. When I did, mine was like a leprechaun; I had to trick these wordplays out of it by promising it a credit. So, it's name is... where did I put that piece of paper? Well, just so you know I didn't write these!

The Chemistry Of Placenames, Dan Tilque

Word Ways

When asked about the relationship between the chemical elements and placenames, those knowledgeable in etymology will point out the several elements that derive their names from those of cities or towns. Holmium is derived from Stockholm, Sweden; lutetium comes form Lutetia, the Roman name from Paris; berkelium from Berkeley, California; and strontium indirectly comes form Strontian, a village in Scotland. No less than four elements--erbium, ytterbium, and yttrium--are derived from Ytterby, a Swedish mining town.

Reversals Revisited, Christopher Mcmanus

Word Ways

Words embedded in unrelated words are a frequent source of word play. When the embedded word occurs in reverse order, the surprise factor is further increased. For example, a recent cryptic crossword included the punning clue "We sent up plant monster". The answer was WEREWOLF, i.e., WE followed by FLOWER reversed. Another answer in the same puzzle was DAIRYMAID. It's clue dissected the answer into AID preceded by the reversal of MYRIAD.

Codebreaker Grids, Peter Newby

Word Ways

Recently two British newspapers have launched the next generation of crosswords -- codebreaker grinds. Resembling a standard crossword in format, the only difference being each blank square has its own number from 1 to 26, there are virtually no clues but let me quote the Daily Mail's Codeword instructions to give you a flavour of the challenge.

6x6 Magic Word Squares, Leonard Gordon

Word Ways

This article shows how to construct a 6x6 magic word square using the method described in my "Eulerian Magic Word Squares" (November, 1996). The method is based on starting with an Eulerian square, but since a 6x6 Eulerian square does not exist, I must modify the method to make it work. Figure 2 is a well-known magic square. Figure 3 is derived from it by converting to base 6. Let's convert it to words, first for ordinary gementria, then for wints.

Cyclic Difference Words, Rex Gooch

Word Ways

As discussed in "Word Arithmetic" in the November 1996 Word Ways, there are two ways to construct difference words. The first was examined in detail in "Absolute Difference Words" in February; the second is the subject of this article. Briefly, a cyclic difference word is formed form a source word such as VASE (22.1.19.5) by subtracting the ith number from the (i+1)st, if necessary adding 26 to the latter to make them different positive (5 = 27.22, 18 = 19-1 = 31-19, yielding the target word ERL).

Mary Had A Letter Lamb, Richard Lederer

Word Ways

Perhaps the most famous of all children's poems is the eight liens of verse composed by Sarah Josepha Hale and published in 1830 in Poems of Our Children.

Murderous Wordplay, Peter Newby

Word Ways

The 1678 murder of Justice Godfrey is known as 'England's longest unsolved murder' despite the fact that three men were hanged, drawn and quartered for the crime. These dupes were--as Lee Harvey Oswald is alleged to be--the 'fall guys' for a powerful group of conspirators whose ultimate target was the head to state, the Stuart monarch.

More Words Newfound, Words Reobserved, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

In the February 1994 issue of Word Ways. I offered a collection of 26 words, one for each letter of the alphabet, which had caught my attention over the preceding months. Some of the words were new, most had been in existence for many years. But all of them had some special property worthy of note to logologists.

The Commonest Double Word Squares, M. Douglas Mcilroy

Word Ways

Draw a stock of n-letter words in decreasing order of frequency from Kucera and Francis's Computational Analysis of Present-Day American English until they yield a double word square. For n=2,3,4,5, word stocks of 15,66,326 and 1444 are needed, in good agreement with Chris Cole's theoretical predictions of 16, 63, 250 and 992 given in "Mathematics of Square Construction" in February 1993. The Kucera and Francis frequencies (in word per million) are given next to the words in each square.

The Boys Of Summer, Leonard R. N. Ashley

Word Ways

See if you can hit a home run on this quiz. Play it to the bleechers! Baseball, the national game, has done much for the national language. Give the baseball-inspired slang for the following. Ready? Step up to the plate. Play ball!

Lame Duck Or Swan Song?, Robert C. Layton

Word Ways

The media has of late confused the status of reelected officials not eligible for an additional term, referring to them as "lame ducks". Governor George Allen of Virginia and President Clinton are prime examples. Although the animal term is inappropriate for their situation, both men will have to come to terms with the animal kingdom in their respective positions.

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

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

Back Cover

Word Ways

Instructions to authors wishing to contribute to Word Ways.

Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 30 Issue 2

Word Ways

Front cover and publication information for this issue.

The Unstoppable Aeginrst Machine, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

Previous issues of Word Ways have contained the various transposals of the letter AEGINRST, building on Dmitri Borgmann's initial attempts in Language on Vacation. Ross Eckler's superb Making the Alphabet Dance presented all known 157 transposals of these letters.

Avian Tautonyms, Susan Thorpe

Word Ways

In my "AEIOU Words in Biology" in the February 1994 Word Ways, I conjectured that the Boat-billed Heron, Cochlearius cochlearius cochlearius, was possibly unique in having the five vowels once in each of its genus, species and subspecies names. Since then i have discovered a further 51 genus/species/subspecies trinomial tautonyms from the world of birds.

Single-Letter Words, Stephen J. Chism, Andrea Cantrell

Word Ways

Basic building blocks of the English language, the good old ABCs, are frequently used singly to convey an entire word or concept. More than just popular acronyms or initialisms, single-letter words help communicate simply and succinctly complex processes, well-known organizations, familiar brand names, legal designations, and physical objects from large to small.

Kickshaws, David Morice

Word Ways

A collection of linguistic kickshaws.

Washington For Word Watchers, Christopher Mcmanus

Word Ways

America's capital city is famous for many features, including its architecture and monuments, historical associations, and ongoing political intrigues. Washington D.C. has been described as "the only place where sound travels faster then light." Unknown to the general public, however, Washington has several claims to the logological hall of fame. The following paragraphs attempt to dispel this ignorance and reveal the true basis of Washington's unique spot in the word lovers' pantheon.

Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 30 Issue 1

Word Ways

Front cover and publication information for this issue.

Hey, Dog - Run (No Sweat!), Doug Nufer

Word Ways

The morning brought a problem that wouldn't go away. Although it sounded like an old putdown, we went to every thrift store in Billyville, Arkansas, looking for the right mixture of chintzy and snappy, so we could show off without thumbing our noses. When we got dressed, nobody was going to tell us "I wouldn't wear that to a dog fight" because we were off to the races.

New Word Palindromes, Will Shortz

Word Ways

Michael Donner's fine recent book on palindromes. I love Me, Vol. I. got me thinking about word palindromes and the paucity of examples cited in the standard collections. Besides the classic "All of one and one for all," the cry of the Three Musketeers, the following specimens are among the few that are generally cited in illustrating the genre.

Computer Jotto And Crash, Leonard Gordon

Word Ways

The August 1996 article "Playing Jotto Against a Computer" discusses the game of Jotto as played by a commercial computer program. Toward the end of the article, the authors suggest a "better" (minimax) value of play. I agree that their method is too difficult to implement, but I also believe that it is based on a weak premise and would be useless even if implemented. There can be no compleat strategy to Jotto. Guessing your opponent's word is a matter of bookkeeping plus a little luck. Since the computer is a better bookkeeper and knows its vocabulary better than a …

Julian Calendar Verse, Jan Anderson

Word Ways

Dateline Rome:

A Collection Of Nine-Squares, Richard Sabey

Word Ways

This article shows some of the results of a computer search for regular nine-squares. My earlier article on eight-squares reported on a search confined to solid all-lowercase eight-letter words. Standards had to be lowered for the nine-square search, and I included capitalised terms, hyphenated words and multiple-word phrases.