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Qwaints, Peter Newby
Qwaints, Peter Newby
Word Ways
Anthony Sebastian and Renee Merriam's description of an aberrant form of self-referential words in the August Word Ways as "a unique variety of world-like letter sequences" lacks punch. These verbal delights, originated by Darryl Francis, require an apt single-word name if they are to achieve the popularity they deserve.
Beyond Long Nontrivial Transposals, Kyle Corbin
Beyond Long Nontrivial Transposals, Kyle Corbin
Word Ways
In my article "Transposals of 15 or More Letters" in the February 1989 issue of Word Ways, I presented a list of 560 trivial and 44 nontrivial transposals. In this follow-up article, I discuss the nontrivial transposals in more detail. I also present the longest nontrivial subtransposals, transadditions, and transdeletions, all of which I discovered while compiling the list of transposals in 1987 and 1988.
The Meaning Or Purpose Of Life, John Henrick
The Meaning Or Purpose Of Life, John Henrick
Word Ways
If Word Ways required abstracts for its articles, this would be an awkward moment. Originally, I intended to write an ordinary book review about an anything-but-ordinary book. Things soon got out of hand, however, resulting in a hybrid article. Flip-and-skim readers may by now have typed it as an instance of the premise-bit sequence, long a standby of Johnny Carson and Ed McMahonon the Tonight Show. Ed: "In that one book is "everything" you could hope to know about [book topic]." Johnny: "You are wrong, [topic-related adjective]-breath. Our staff has done some research and come up with a list of …
Computer Anagrams: Not Much Progress, Mike Morton
Computer Anagrams: Not Much Progress, Mike Morton
Word Ways
In 1982, I wrote a computer program (later known as Ars Magna TM) which used a dictionary to produce all possible anagrams for a phrase entered by the user. At about the same time, Jim Woods of the NASA/Ames Research Center in California wrote a similar program. Perhaps there are more, though I haven't heard of them.
Folk Etymology, Leonard R. N. Ashley
Folk Etymology, Leonard R. N. Ashley
Word Ways
In my forthcoming book on onomastics, "What's in a Name?" from Genealogical Publishers of Baltimore. I discuss the folk etymologies of United States placenames -- among all other aspects of names -- such as "ore or no go" for Oronogo and "all Benny" for Albany. Here are some words originating in the people's distortion of the form or meaning, or based on mistakes of analogy. How many can you recognize?
Beyond Quinquennially, Joel Funk
Beyond Quinquennially, Joel Funk
Word Ways
The July 1988 issue of Games magazine contains a contest entitled "Hit The Jackpot" which ought to appeal to logologists. The contest is based on the lettered dartboard shown to the left. The challenge at the board, collecting letters (or a bull's eye) with each dart. Then add any number of vowels (including Y) to the letters collected and rearrange all of the letters to form a word. The only consonants that may appear in the word are the ones collected by the four darts.
Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 22 Number 2
Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 22 Number 2
Word Ways
Front cover and publication information for this issue.
Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 22 Number 1
Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 22 Number 1
Word Ways
Front Cover and Publication Information, Volume 22 Number 1
British Car Registrations, Darryl Francis
British Car Registrations, Darryl Francis
Word Ways
In his August 1988 Word Ways article, "Unabbreviation", Stuart Baird offered a license-plate game. This game could be played with various different rules, leading to different "best" solutions.
Transposals Of 15 Or More Letters, Kyle Corbin
Transposals Of 15 Or More Letters, Kyle Corbin
Word Ways
Two words are called transposals if they use the same letters in a different order. The letters may be rearranged only slightly, as in BACHELOR-BUTTONS and BACHELOR'S-BUTTON (a "trivial" transposal), or they may be quite mixed, as in COUNTERDOCTRINES and RECONSTRUCTIONED ("nontrivial"). Word Ways has published many short nontrivial transposals and a few long trivial and nontrivial ones over the years. In 1987 I discovered several new long nontrivial transposals during related logological research, and I soon began keeping a list of all the trivial and nontrivial transposals of at least 15 letters I could find. That list great into …
Berserk Revel Grew Tough, Ha!, Mike Morton
Berserk Revel Grew Tough, Ha!, Mike Morton
Word Ways
Not being the sort of publication that normally covers mainstream events, we were a bit puzzled when the White House recently requested that we attend an interview with President Bush. Nevertheless, we contacted a subscriber living nearby, Carol Montheim, who graciously agreed to do the interview. Upon her arrival at the White House, the mystery was cleared up: President Bush had lost his voice in an hour-long shouting match with Dan Rather which was never aired.
Listen To The Mocking Word, William Tunstall-Pedoe
Listen To The Mocking Word, William Tunstall-Pedoe
Word Ways
I wish you would stop apologising.
A Trivia Challenge, Peter Newby
A Trivia Challenge, Peter Newby
Word Ways
Many word buffs enjoy a solitary investigation, and for them "Pears Advanced Word-Puzzler's Dictionary" (Pelham Books, London: 1987), reviewed elsewhere in this issue, offers a unique feature. Certain words in the dictionary have usual features worthy of recording as footnotes to their individual entries:
Word Network Spans In The Ospd, Leonard J. Gordon
Word Network Spans In The Ospd, Leonard J. Gordon
Word Ways
A word network is a set of words of a given length in which any two words differing by only one letter in a single position (such as aunt and runt, or hire and hare) are connected by a line. Using these lines, one can trace out a path leading from any word in a network to any other word in the same network. The terminal words, together with the intermediate words in the path, form a word ladder, well-known since the days of Lewis Caroll (who invented the concept, calling the terminal words doublets and the intermediate words …
10-By-10 Squares: Progress Report, Frank Rubin
10-By-10 Squares: Progress Report, Frank Rubin
Word Ways
In the August 1988 Word Ways, I wrote about my plans to launch a computer attack on the 10-by-10 double word square. I asked for help from Word Ways readers who might help gather 10-letter words from dictionaries and other sources. I received only one reply, from George H. Ropes, who had just written an article on his own search for a 10-by-10 word square. He had the Air force word list from Webster's Second on diskettes, and graciously supplied those diskettes to me.
The Franklin Wordmaster, Bruce Pyne
The Franklin Wordmaster, Bruce Pyne
Word Ways
In my August 1988 Word Ways article, I described an electronic speller, the Spelling Ace, issued by Franklin Computer of Pennsauken. New Jersey for less than $60. During the summer of 1988, Franklin began retailing a new computer which is called Wordmaster. It can do everything their first model can -- and much more. It is the same size and shape as the Spelling Ace, has a typewriter keyboard, and is powered by four AAA batteries, but that's where the similarities end.
Transdeletion Nests In Chambers, John Holgate
Transdeletion Nests In Chambers, John Holgate
Word Ways
Successive transdeletions by a single letter from word to word yield a pyramidic structure, as demonstrated by Ross Eckler in "Two New Transdeletion Pyramids" in the May Word Ways. What if we progressively delete all letters of a single word and transpose the remainder?
The Transmutation Of Lanugage, Robert Schleifer
The Transmutation Of Lanugage, Robert Schleifer
Word Ways
In the fifth century B.C., Empedocles of Acragas, the Greek philosopher, proclaimed that the universe is composed of four primal elements: fire, air, water, and earth. While not, perhaps, the most scientific descriptive cosmology, this doctrine nevertheless dominated Western philosophical thought for twenty-one hundred years and is today still favorably regarded by born-again astrologists. But it did not fully satisfy Aristotle, who, writing a century later, explained that while these four "material" elements could define all earthly substances, a fifth "immaterial" element must define all heavenly phenomena. He called this element pemte ousia, or FIFTH BEING.
Kickshaws, David Morice
Slang Forenames, Leonard R. N. Ashley
Slang Forenames, Leonard R. N. Ashley
Word Ways
You all know about an Adonis, a Tarzan, and such, but here are some slang terms which employ common forenames. You don't have to be an Einstein to identify most of them, but a few may challenge you to be a Sherlock to figure them out. How many can you get right? Answers can be found in the Answers and Solutions in the end of this issue.
"Alas, Alack!" Revisited, Trip Payne
"Alas, Alack!" Revisited, Trip Payne
Word Ways
In "Gargantua and Pantagruel," Book 4, Chapter XVIII through XXI, Pantagruel and his men are facing a dreadful storm at sea. One of the sailors, Panurge, is convinced of impeding death and spends all four chapter blubbering. While he lets loose with a few "boo-hoo-hoo"s and a few well-placed "woe is me! woe, woe!"s and the like, most of interjections are highly original, packed with logological curiosities.
Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 21 Number 4
Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 21 Number 4
Word Ways
Front cover and publication information for this issue.
Borgmann: The Man Behind The Legend, Faith W. Eckler
Borgmann: The Man Behind The Legend, Faith W. Eckler
Word Ways
Dmitri Borgmann has been called the Father of Logology--a term he coined to describe recreational wordplay as a distinguished from academic linguistics. His two books, "Language on Vacation" (1965) and "Beyond Language" (1967), have become classics in the field. In 1968 Greenwood Press selected him as Word Ways' first editor.
A Lode For Logastelli, Eric Albert
A Lode For Logastelli, Eric Albert
Word Ways
Many readers of these pages are familiar with Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary, a delightful collection of "unusual, obscure, and preposterous words." The above definition shows that Mrs. Byrne recognized a felicitous Word Ways contribution when she came across it. I would like to now return the favor by giving here a portion of my personal list of evocative, illuminating, and just downright bizarre words.
Mary Had A Little Lampoon, David Morice
Mary Had A Little Lampoon, David Morice
Word Ways
In the August 1969 issue of Word Ways, Ross Eckler introduced the idea of mutating "Mary Had a Little Lamb" by writing five versions of the poem in lipogrammatic form, in which only one of the five vowels was not used throughout each text. Seventeen years later, in the August 1986 issue, Paul Hellweg presented five more versions, this time in univocalic form, in which only one of the five vowels was used throughout each text. Although this isn't the August 2003 issue, I'm continuing the tradition by adding five more poems to the flock.