Digital Commons Network^™

The Search For Gadsby, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

The novel "Gadsby," written without the letter E by Ernest Vincent Wright in 1936-37, is one of those books that many people have heard about but few have seen. It has been alluded to in books on wordplay (for example, in the appendix to the Dover Publication 1961 paperback reprint of Bombaugh's "Oddities and Curiosities), in magazines (one page in the September 1972 Sc ientific American), and even in books on other subjects (Ronald Clark's "The Man Who Broke Purple," 1977). The book is extremely rare; according to "The Book of Lists 3" by Amy Wallace, David Wallechinsky, and Irving …

Kickshaws

Word Ways

A collection of linguistic kickshaws.

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to the puzzles in this issue.

There's A Word For It, Leonard R. N. Ashley

Word Ways

You may remember that people used to worry about what the word was for the fluff that one finds in the corners of one's pockets. Sometimes people invent words for things that have long gone un-named: Gelett Burgess though up blurb for the self-promoting material on a book jacket; someone came up with gridlock (and pedlock, but the latter did not catch on). And some people seem to know the name for everything; the little decorative thing that screws on at the top of a lamp to hold the shade on is a finial, and it screws onto the …

Back Cover

Word Ways

Back cover of this issue including instructions to authors.

Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 21, Number 2

Word Ways

Front cover and publication information for this issue.

Nomen Est Omen, Harry B. Partridge

Word Ways

The last time Dr. Wombat invited me over for strawberries and cream I finally got into a discussion about his title with him. I furry phascolome possesses several doctorates, which he declines to discuss in any detail, but he did enlighten me about his iatriatrical specialty, which he considered his most trivial, but at the same time most lucrative.

Two New Transdeletion Pyramids, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

The August 1979 Word Ways article "Word Roots and Branches" showed how the 17-letter Websterian word ANTICEREMONIALIST could be successively transdeleted down to a single letter: remove E and rearrange the remaining 16 letters to obtain NONMATERIALISTIC, remove N and rearrange the remaining 15 letters to obtain RECITALIONALISM, and so on. Unfortunately, it was necessary to include one non-Websterian word, RECLAMATIONIST (used in 1946 Saturday Evening Post article), in the sequence.

Exuberance, A Motivation For Language, Allen Walker Read

Word Ways

The following is part of the presidential address from Allen Walker Read, given before LACUS (Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States) at its annual meeting, August 7, 1987, at York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is reprinted by permission from the proceedings, "The Fourteenth LACUS Forum," 1987.

Famous Last Anagrams, John Holgate

Word Ways

Deathbed utterances of famous people are sometimes recorded for posterity and generally contain the last spark of wisdom before they go to greet the great Anagrammatist in the Sky. Who could forget Madame de Pompadour's bon mot to a priest at her bedside "Stay a little longer and we will go together" or Bredan Behan's remark to the obliging nun "Bless you, Sister. May you be the mother of a bishop"? In fact many of these gems are apocryphal or said while the notable enjoyed good health. His or her very last Rhodes' dictum "So much to do, so little …

Two Hundred Eight-Squares, Jeff Grant

Word Ways

In his article "Most Quality Word Squares" in the February 1988 issue of Word Ways, Dmitri Borgmann exhibited the four finest eight-by-eight word squares known to him. The first example is clearly the best of those shown, as the other all resort to two-word terms which rather detract from their standing.

A Logological Tribute, Walter Shedlofsky

Word Ways

I propose that the following definition be entered into the English language:

My Struggle With A Ten-Square, G. H. Ropes

Word Ways

The genesis of the work described herein was a conversation with Murray Parce ('Merlin', in the National Puzzlers' League) at the Carlottesville convention in July 1987. We agreed on collaborative efforts to construct a nine-squre, something no NPL member had done for an umber of years. The first result appeared in the December 1987 issue of the Enigma: a nine-square by him based on STEERLESS, and one by me on TERSENESS.

Colloquy

Word Ways

A collection of responses to previously published articles.

How To Name The Residents, Vernon D. Maclaren

Word Ways

I read Mary Stewart Craig's article "Do Mamaroneckers Like to Neck?" in the November issue of Word Ways with great relish. As an upstanding citizen, I immediately sat down and set down some regional epithets that popped into my head, trying to follow her example. I mailed them to Word Ways and returned to my mystery novel. In a few days I received a note from the editor, suggesting that I "elucidate and illustrate those principles that make for clever citizens' names."

Websterian Synonym Chains, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

In "Beyond Language" (Scribner's, 1967), Dmitri Borgmann presents two synonym chains in "Beauty in Ugliness" on pages 38-9 and 191:

Dream Sequence, Matthew K. Franklin

Word Ways

I had the strangest dream last night, I deamt that I was flying over Washington, D.C. toward the White House. As I passed the front gates, I could see a line of picketers pacing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The pacing got me so dizzy that i could hardly tell which way was back and which was way forth! They were shouting something about the Attorney General, who was refusing to leave office despite mounting evidence against him and continuing calls for his resignation. I caught a glimpse of one of their signs and I flew …

Minimal Word Ladders, Kyle Corbin

Word Ways

A word ladder is a sequence of words of the same length in which each word is successively transformed into the next word by changing only one of its letters and not rearranging the other letters. For example, QUITE becomes SUITE by changing Q to S. The sequence could continue with SUITE to SPITE. SPITE to SPINE, SPINE to SPINS, SPINS to SPANS, and so on, theoretically continuing for hundreds of words. In the six words of this ladder from QUITE to SPANS, though, no letter-position is changed more than once (e.g., after Q has been changed to S in …

The Electronic Speller, Faith W. Eckler

Word Ways

I recently bought a new typewriter--one of those super-duper electronic marvels which does everything but slice bread. Among its many features is a built-in 50,000-word dictionary against which I can check the spelling of words, either as I type them or after and press the space bar, the machine will beep angrily at me and I will have two options: either I can press the space bar again, in which case the machine will reluctantly type the word as I spelled it (probably laughing quietly to itself at my idiocy), or I can ask the machine to search its dictionary …

Lexicographers' Lib, Kay Haugaard

Word Ways

Samuel Johnson, compiler of the first dictionary of the English language, included in its his definition of the word lexicographer, "a harmless drudge."

The Word Calculator, David Morice

Word Ways

In letter-shift word pairs, the letters in one word are an equal number of alphabetic steps away from the corresponding letters in the other word. CHEER to JOLLY is perhaps the most well-known example, with a letter-shift value of seven (C to J, H to O, etc.). FAT to NIB with a letter-shift value of eight works the same way, except the shift from T to B involves counting letters on a circular alphabet where Z is followed by A. Because the letters are equidistant, letter-shift words can be considered parallel to each other.

Naming The Chronisms, Paul Dickson

Word Ways

Not long ago, I went into a store and told the man behind the counter that I needed a needle for my record player.

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to the puzzles in this issue.

Yuppies, Buppies, Oinks And Dinks, Leonard R. N. Ashley

Word Ways

The middle class (or, often more accurately, the upper lower class who have got fairly high-paying employment) have become part of the sociological trend and a rich source of new words or old words used in new ways. Some of the following are easy to define, some rather more difficult. Do they have meaning in your lifestyle? Answers more difficult. Do they have meaning in your lifestyle? Answers can be found in Answers and Solutions at the end of this issue.

Logo Rythms, John Henrick

Word Ways

An invoice here?

Aye, due.

Was that a tear?

Eye dew.

Who needs a beer?

I do!

Kickshaws, Eric Albert

Word Ways

A collection of linguistic kickshaws.

Back Cover

Word Ways

Back cover of this issue including instructions to authors.

His Final Bow

Word Ways

This issue of Word Ways ends Dmitri Borgmann's articles, written not only under his own name, but also using the pseudonyms Merlin X, Houdini IV, Ramona J. Quincunx, Jezebel Q. Xixx, Mejnour Zanoni, Rod P. Selden, and Ravenscroft J. Cloudesley.

Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 21, Number 1

Word Ways

Front cover and publication information for this issue.

A Puzzler's Paradise, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

Listed below are 34 kinds of word puzzles, games and curiosities, each one in scrambled form. Your assignment is to rearrange the letters of each one into its correct order. Simple enough? Of course! Why 34 scrambles, instead of some number that shows a healthy respect for the decimal system? Because 34 happens to be the total of each row, column and main diagonal in a magic square of the fourth order - sufficient reason!