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Colloquy

Word Ways

Webster's Dictionary defines colloquy as "mutual discourse". Readers are encouraged to submit additions, corrections, and comments about earlier articles appearing in Word Ways. Comments received at least one month prior to publication of an issue will appear in that issue.

The Oed Supplement (Se-Z), Darryl Francis

Word Ways

1972 saw the publication of the first volume of the revised Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary, covering the letters A-G. The second volume, for the letters H-N, appeared in 1976, and the third volume, spanning O-Scz, appeared in 1983. Reviews of these three volumes were published in Word Ways in 1977 and May 1983.

The Poet's Corner

Word Ways

From time to time, Word Ways receives a variety of short poems related to recreational linguistics, some original, others previously published. As poetic output cannot be easily predicted, these will be presented on an irregular basis.

An Overlap Chain Of Town Names, Edward R. Wolpow

Word Ways

An overlap chain of words is a sequence in which the last letters of each word form the first letters of the next, as in SPACE, CEILING, INGOT or SEVEN, EVENT, ENTRANCE. A complete overlap chain is one in which each letter participates in exactly one over-lap - that is, there can be no letters in the middle of the word no overlapping with the preceding or following ones (for example, IL in CEILING), nor can any letter overlap with both the preceding and following words (for example, EN in EVENT). To avoid uninteresting chains, I require also that each …

Quasi Eleven-Squares, Jeff Grant

Word Ways

The following 11-by-11 word square appears in Language on Vacation (Scribner's, 1965), and is described by the author, Dmitri Borgmann, as 'quasi square'. The seven central words are of impeccable quality, but the two sets of letter combinations at each end are complete gibberish.

Pangrams, Maxey Brooke

Word Ways

The word pangram, though well-known to the logologist for many years, appears in few dictionaries. Such standard works as the Marriam-Webster Unabridged (both Second and Third Editions) and the Oxford English Dictionary omit it, and it is not mentioned in the Encyclopedia Britannica's long section on wordplay. The only dictionaries in which it appears at "6000 Words" (1976) and the third volume of the "Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary" (1982). In both, the word is defined as a sentence containing all 26 letters of the alphabet. It is understood, although not explicitly specified, that some of these letters may …

Haiku Maze, David Morice

Word Ways

What it is The Haiku Maze is a permutational word device for creating 17-syllable poems by working the maze.

Five-Letter Internal Palidromes, Bruce Pyne

Word Ways

Most Word Ways readers are attuned to letter-patterns. One of the most commonly-encountered ones is the internal palindrome, as in REVERse or diVISIVe. For years I have been collecting words with internal palindromes of five or more letters. I sent the editor a type-collections of 336 five-letter examples, from mACACA to piZAZZ; he added over one hundred more from a perusal of Jack Levine's list of pattern words, and solicited the help of Dana Richards in searching the Air Force list of Webster's Second by command is presented on the following pages. In the interest of brevity only one example …

The Syndrome, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Dr. Edward Wax carefully inserted the cassette in the player as he glanced at the other four sitting around the conference table. "I'm glad you could find the time to listen to my problem," he began. "I realize that the Psychiatric Institute is ordinarily concerned with research into phobias or psychological aberrations that have resisted treatment by the foremost psychiatrists, not the routine neuroses encountered by a GP like myself. Were it not for my neighbor, Mr. Pfund of your Institute, I suppose I should never have been given this hearing." He nodded toward the short cherubic man sitting across …

Basketball Names, Timothy J. Wheeler

Word Ways

At first glance, the game of basketball does not seem a promising source of wordplay. Unfortunately for one in hoop-happy Hoosierdom, it isn't so not on second glance, either.

Political Polemics: What's In A Name?, Leonard R. N. Ashley

Word Ways

The National Committee for Honest Political Naming (L.R.N. Ashley, President and Chief Executive Officer) is a one-member, one-issue organization dedicated to exposing what The New Republic called in its 1 Sep 1986 issue viewspeak, defined as "the increasingly popular trick of disguising your own self-interest in the rhetoric of public interest." The rule is the more partisan the Political Action Committee (PAC), the less partisan-sounding its name. The difference between the names of the lobbying groups and what they are up to suggested this little quiz. See if you can guess the concern of each group of lobbyists from …

Back Cover

Word Ways

Back cover of this issue including instructions to authors.

Anagrams, Anyone?, David Shulman

Word Ways

I have been asked by the editors to share my expertise on anagrams with the readers of Word Ways. But, actually, with a smidgen of modesty, I do not pretend to be an expert. I may have had more experience than other puzzle creators, yet a good original anagram is still just as hard to create as ever.

Captain Smith's Vlgrie, George H. Scheetz

Word Ways

Harry B. Partridge, in "Ad Memoriam Demetrii" (August 1986), introduced a newly-discovered word ending in -gry. I was very interested in this announcement, since I Have been working on a little treatise of such words; ulgry increased my list to nineteen examples.

Answers And Solutions To Puzzles In This Issue

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to puzzles in this issue.

Adventure In The Supermarket, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

Most of you probably look upon a trip to the supermarket as a routine shopping exercise, one that can even be burdensome or frustrating. Those of us sensitive to the impact of the language on thought tend to see it in a different light: as a semantic adventure, a mind-boggling word game, a foray into a verbal fairyland.

Borgmann Resurrectus

Word Ways

Although Dmitri Borgmann died on December 7, 1985, his work lives on for awhile. The editor has a collection of unpublished articles sent to Word Ways, and it is from this that the present memorial issue has been assembled. There is more: a final installment in scheduled to appear in February 1988, the 20th anniversary of the inaugural issue of Word Ways under his editorship.

History Reinterpreted, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

All of creation, whether animate or inanimate, strives to satisfy the ultimate, elemental logological low - one requiring that designations to begin with letters in the first half of the English alphabet (A through M).

Crypotograms On The Prowl, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

One of the fundamental ways of enciphering a text for the purpose of concealing its message is to rearrange the letters of which it consists. The result is a so-called transposition cipher. If we apply its principle to individual words or names, we can achieve interesting results. For example, ECHOIC turns into CHOICE with the mere shift of its first letter to the end of the word: CLAIMED converts into DECIMAL (or into MEDICAL, DECLAIM, CADMIEL, MEDALIC, CAMELID, or MALICED): and MOUNTAINEER becomes ENUMERATION. Tens of thousands of other English words and names can similarly be transposed.

100 Quality 6-By-6 Word Squares, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

The history of word square construction in the United States has largely been one of the strenuous attempts to build the largest possible word squares. While size of a legitimate objective in logological pursuits, word square experts such as the formists of the Eastern Puzzlers' League and the National Puzzlers' League permitted that objective to dominate them completely. As a result, they sacrificed word square quality: most of their constructions were of unacceptably low quality. More recently, word lists have been fed into computers programmed to construct all word squares extractable from words in the lists used.

New Elemental Vistas, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

In recent decades, physics and chemistry have been active in contributing new words and names to the English word-stock - a fact for which logologists are duly thankful: the more words there are for them to use, the more they can accomplish. Playing only a very minor role in the overall picture have been new names for chemical elements, since progress in discovering or creating additional elements is excruciatingly slow. For quite a number of years, the number of elements with firmly established names has stood at 103, the elements involved spanning the range from HYDROGEN (element 1) to LAWRENCIUM …

Advice To The Lovelorn, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

In these decadent times, no newspaper is complete without a column of advice for the loverlorn and for others with problems. Since newspapers consist of words and we specialize in words, it follows with logic absolute that we, too, must address ourselves to the problems of the lovelorn.

On Constructing Long Words, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

Of perennial interest to Word Ways readers are very long English words - words of 27 or more letters, written solidly, without hyphens, apostrophes, or other letter separations. Unfortunately, categories: obscure medical terms: even obscurer medical terms: weird place names of Amerind, Welsh, Maori, Thai, or other equally exotic provenance, resembling nothing even remotely English: fictitious words listed and defined by dictionaries. Examples of fictitious words include:

HONORICICABILITUDINATATIBUS (Web 1 and 2)

FLOCCIPAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION (Oxford English Dictionary)

SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS (Random House)

PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOCANOKONISOSIS (Web 2)

PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS (Web 3)

The Ultimate Synonym Group, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

What is the most talked-about subject in the English-speaking world today? Baldness! How do I know? Because there are more synonyms for the word baldness than for any other English word or term.

A Logological Geoquiz, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

The pages of Word Ways have frequently featured articles and quizzes concerned with the logological peculiarities of place names. Most of these contributions have dealt with United States geography - with the names of the 50 states, for instance. Since the United States is only one of about 175 nations in the world, this heavy concentration on American place names is, to put it charitably, somewhat parochial. It is especially so because names elsewhere in the world are logologically just as interesting as United States names.

Irish Bulls, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

An Irish bull, or simply a bull, is a ludicrous language blunder: an illogical, absurd, and/or amusing mistake - especially one that is paradoxical or self-contradictory. Some dictionaries take a casual approach to Irish bulls, defining them but omitting actual examples.

Quelque Chose, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

Kickshaws is currently being assembled by a series of guest editors. All contributions should be sent to the editor in Morristown, New Jersey.

Instructions To Authors

Word Ways

Back cover, including instructions to authors who wish to contribute to Word Ways

Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 20 Number 1

Word Ways

Publication information including table of contents.

Colloquy

Word Ways

Webster's Dictionary defines colloquy as mutual discourse. Readers are encouraged to submit additions, corrections, and comments about earlier articles appearing in Word Ways. Comments received at least one month prior to publication of an issue will appear in that issue.