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Articles 2821 - 2850 of 4911
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Answers And Solutions
Word Ways
Answers and solutions to the puzzles and games contained in this issue.
Of Vowels And Things, John Foster
Of Vowels And Things, John Foster
Word Ways
Some years ago I was in hospital for an operation and every morning at some point a bright young nurse came in to ask if my vowels had moved yet. The reason for this strange request was not immediately obvious, for the answers "yes," "no," "purple," "broccoli," "42" and "Ford Prefect" all seemed to elicit the same noncommittal response. But I'm not stupid, I knew what they were after. If my vowels were to move far enough to actually transpose then my surname would become FESTOR, obviously undesirable in one recovering from surgery. You can be very sure I maintained …
Some New Discoveries, Darryl Francis
Some New Discoveries, Darryl Francis
Word Ways
This brief article presents three words which have never before had the logological spotlight turned on them. It seems surprising that these words have lain unnoticed for so long. What other treasures are there still waiting to be discovered?
Why Can't Doctors Spell?, Christopher Mcmanus
Why Can't Doctors Spell?, Christopher Mcmanus
Word Ways
The illegibility of doctors' handwriting has spawned innumerable jokes. Jottings that seem illegible and unintelligible may actually be technical terms that mimic commoner words. A cursory scan of Stedman's Medical Dictionary (1976) uncovered scores of seemingly-misspelled words. An abridged collection of these is given below, where each scientific term is followed by a brief definition, with its common look-alike in parentheses.
A Smaller Presidential Rectangle, Lee Sallows
A Smaller Presidential Rectangle, Lee Sallows
Word Ways
After admiring Darryl Francis's new presidential rectangle in Word Ways for May 1993, I began wondering if his result could be improved upon. The temptation to have a try finally proved irresistable. The result has rewarded efforts. Francis captures the names of all 37 US presidents within an area of 17x29 = 418, a reduction of 75 square units!
Kickshaws, David Morice
Tucson Word Squares, Leonard Gordon
Tucson Word Squares, Leonard Gordon
Word Ways
Here is a little game I played, involving the construction of a fake 8x8 word squares. From a set of 37,000 eight-letter words, extract the commonest four-letter beginnings and four-letter endings. The commonest beginnings were over 251, fore 123, back 65, hand 60, outs 59, down 52, wood 52 and foot 51. The 89 commonest beginnings (down to the cent, rock, rose, book, home, distresi and others with 24 occurrences) yielded seven 4x4 squares; in fact, the first square was produced from the 30 commonest beginnings, and the second square from the 44 commonest.
Yugoslavian Transadditions, Darryl Francis
Yugoslavian Transadditions, Darryl Francis
Word Ways
With Yugoslavia so much in the news these days, I have put together a list of Yugoslavia-related transposals and transadditions, plus a few substitute-letter transpositions, Can Word Ways readers expand on my list?
Answers And Solutions
Word Ways
Answers and solutions to the puzzles and games contained in this issue.
Word Worms, A. Ross Eckler
Word Worms, A. Ross Eckler
Word Ways
In a 3-by-3-by-3 lattice there are 27 cubes of equal size - a central cube surrounded by 26 neighbors. Assign the 26 letters of the alphabet to these cubes according to the following diagram.
Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 26 Issue 3
Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 26 Issue 3
Word Ways
Front cover and publication information for this issue.
The Mallarme Cryptopuzzles, Paul Maxim
The Mallarme Cryptopuzzles, Paul Maxim
Word Ways
The French poet and essayist Stephane Mallarme (1842-1989) had a varied career as a writer and pedagogue. Employed as a teacher of English in the French school system, he produced, in addition to his literary output, a variety of didactic works such as "The Erglish Words," "The English Themes," "The Ancient Gods." etc.. which may have been used to complement his classroom activities.
Wordnim And Grundyword, Jeremiah Farrell
Wordnim And Grundyword, Jeremiah Farrell
Word Ways
An interesting two-person game begins by choosing any set of words - say, for example, O, HIP, LLAMA, and PIASTER. Players alternately remove one or more letters from exactly one of the four words (all the letters in a word can be removed). Both the deleted letters and those remaining in the player's chosen word must be transposable into words themselves. The game ends when a player cannot make a legal move; the other player is the winner.
Further Fabled Phrases, Peter Newby
The Vowelindrome, Stephen Chism
The Vowelindrome, Stephen Chism
Word Ways
I have coined a new term in order to point out a phenomenon in the English language: the vowelindrome. A vowelindrome is a series of palindromes which result from the placement of a single letter immediately before and after each of the five vowels. After 26 trials and 24 errors, I have determined that there are only two vowelindromes, corresponding to the letters P and T.
Substitute-Letter Isogram Networks, Leonard Gordon
Substitute-Letter Isogram Networks, Leonard Gordon
Word Ways
In past Word Ways issues, I have explored (Carrollian) word networks (Feb, May, Aug 1989), insertion-deletion networks (Aug 1990) and directed word chain networks (Aug, Nov 1991); I now study substitute-letter transposition (SLT) networks.
Long Trails Of Etymology, Leonard R. N. Ashley
Long Trails Of Etymology, Leonard R. N. Ashley
Word Ways
Sometimes, though we scarcely ever notice it, words give clear evidence of where they came from: arrive makes it obvious that Frenchmen reached the river in this way, while Greek helps one to see that harmony came from making a joint, making things fit together. See if you can name the words whos history is briefly summariezed in each of these cases. Get half of them right and you deserve a medal (originally a metal coin).
Word-Square Support: Part 1, A. Ross Eckler
Word-Square Support: Part 1, A. Ross Eckler
Word Ways
In "How Many Words Support a Square?" in the May 1992 Word Ways, I definied the "support" of a word square to be the number of words required, on the average, to form a single word square, and showed that it could be experimentally calculated by means of the scaling formula.
As You Like The Quem Quaeritis Trope, Robert F. Fleissner
As You Like The Quem Quaeritis Trope, Robert F. Fleissner
Word Ways
The title of Shakespeare's first major comedy, "As you Like it," lends itself to word puzzlements, even though it is doubtfully that the author meant by this that everyone should take the title or the play itself simply as he or she sees it. The Epilogue reminds us of that, even as Rosalind urged the audience "to like as much of this play as please you" (12-13) {1}, so the dramatist himself meant that he was writing as he hoped people would like it.
Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 26 Issue 2
Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 26 Issue 2
Word Ways
Front cover and publication information for this issue.
A Word-Sequence Game, Leonard Gordon
A Word-Sequence Game, Leonard Gordon
Word Ways
One word can be changed into another in many ways: substitution of a letter (BET-BAT), addition of a letter (BAT-BATE), deletion of a letter (BATE-ATE), or a rearrangement of letters (ATE-TEA). The figure below can be used in conjunction with a spinner mounted on transparent plastic (obtainable from school supply stores) to make a game in which players in turn add words to a sentence in accordance with the spinner instructions, until someone can no longer continue and is the loser.
A New Presidential Rectangle, Darryl Francis
A New Presidential Rectangle, Darryl Francis
Word Ways
The May 1976 Word Ways published a 17x31 rectangle containing the (then) 33 different presidential surnames. WIth the election of Bill Clinton, I decided to update this rectangle. As shown below, 37 surnames (the previous 33, plus Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton) have been squeezed into a smaller 17x29 rectangle. Taking into account both the increased number of names and the smaller rectangle size, the overall improvement is 16.5 per cent.
Iouea: A Cretaceous Coup, Susan Thorpe
Iouea: A Cretaceous Coup, Susan Thorpe
Word Ways
Dmitri Borgmann, in "Vowel Patterns" in his book "Language on Vacation" (Scribner's, 1965), muses on the finding of what would be the 'ultimate triumph' a 5-letter word constructed from one each of the five vowels A, E, I, O, and U. If you turn to page 638 of "The Encyclopedia of Paleontology" (Dowden, Hutchinson& Ross, 1979), edited by Rhodes W. Fairbridge and David Jablonski, you will find IOUEA, the name of a Cretaceous fossil sponge genus!
Manual D'Enigmistica, Jesus Llado
Manual D'Enigmistica, Jesus Llado
Word Ways
My obsession for playing with words was ignited nearly ten years ago, with the discovery of a palindrome in a Julio Cortazar tale. Since then, I have devoted myself to accumulating historical material relating to word games, as well as to creating new ones. Undeniably, an inherent element of such an obsession is the opportunity offered to the writer to master language and manipulate it in new ways.
Will's Pennies, Leonard Gordon
Will's Pennies, Leonard Gordon
Word Ways
The March 1993 issue of Games magazine "Pencilwise Extra" presented the following puzzle by Will Shortz. Cover one letter with a penny, then take the other six letters on the two lines intersecting at the point and anagram them into a word. For example, cover 15 and anagram 3+7+11+13+14+16. Shortz informs me that this puzzle was invented by Jules Roth and examples published in Tip-Top puzzle magazines in the 1960s.
5x5x5 Word Cubes By Computer, Donald E. Knuth
5x5x5 Word Cubes By Computer, Donald E. Knuth
Word Ways
Recently, I used a computer to look for 5x5x5 word cubes: symmetric patterns that spell five-letter words in rows, columns, and whatchamacallits (is there a name for vertical 1x1x5s?). As far as I know, the only previous example was constructed by Peter Graham and published in Omni in July 1987. But his solution uses REDAN and SARUM.