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Articles 3391 - 3420 of 4911
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Wordplay In Radio Contests, Raymond D. Love
Wordplay In Radio Contests, Raymond D. Love
Word Ways
An automobile dealer in Tuscon, Arizona ran a radio commercial in October 1985 which featured a word game. The advertisement was on twelve different stations, and saturated the airways for two weeks with six to eight spots a day. It was the talk of the town.
Undergrounders, Vernon Maclaren
Undergrounders, Vernon Maclaren
Word Ways
Here is my collection of Undergrounders to add to the ones presented by Dmitri Borgmann in the February 1986 Word Ways
Oklahoma-Missouri Sign Language, Eugene J. Ulrich
Oklahoma-Missouri Sign Language, Eugene J. Ulrich
Word Ways
All of us at one time or another have seen bizarre spelling or language used in signs or notices put up by individuals, organizations or businesses. I would like to share with you some that I've met with in certain fringe-of-the-Ozarks areas of Oklahoma and Missouri.
The Debasement Of Love, Kay Haugaard
The Debasement Of Love, Kay Haugaard
Word Ways
The first morning my husband and I were in England on holiday, the landlady came into the breakfast room of our bed and breakfast lodgings carrying our fried eggs, bangers, grilled tomatoes, soggy toast and my inky black tea and asked cheerily, "Did you sleep well, Love?"
The Apple-Sauce Chronicles, Louis Phillips
The Apple-Sauce Chronicles, Louis Phillips
Word Ways
Word Ways resumes this anthology of light-hearted wordplay (see the May 1984 and November 1984 issues) with the perennial favorite, What's the Question (orginated by Steve Allen in 1958).
Whose What?, Richard Lederer
Whose What?, Richard Lederer
Word Ways
In the English Language, there are a great many common expressions that are built on the formula whose what, that is, a possessive noun plus a noun. To discover just how many of these little phrases have become established, try filling in the blanks below. Answers appear at the end of this issue.
Words From State Name Abbreviations, Bruce Pyne
Words From State Name Abbreviations, Bruce Pyne
Word Ways
Almost all lists of words appearing in Word Ways use single letters as units to construct words. Suppose instead that we choose two-letter combinations, or bigrams, as units.
D'Ou Etes-Vous Revisited, The Word Wurcher
D'Ou Etes-Vous Revisited, The Word Wurcher
Word Ways
D'Ou Etes-Vous deals with a phenomenon which has always been of interest to me. Not only in French, but in Russian as well, the naming of people from their places of origin is very complicated.
Foreign Ideas, Leonard R. N. Ashley
Foreign Ideas, Leonard R. N. Ashley
Word Ways
With thousands of foreign terms in use in our language, it might be asked, very slightly misquoting Rudyard Kipling, "What does he know of English who only English knows?" We are almost as likely to encounter the Latin respice finem or the French of LaFontaine reminding us in all things to consider the final outcome as the English consider the bottom line.
Back Cover
Word Ways
Back cover, including instructions to authors wishing to contribute to the publication.
Kickshaws, David Morice
Answers And Solutions
Word Ways
Answers and solutions to the puzzles contained in this issue.
Double Duty Words, Richard Lederer
Double Duty Words, Richard Lederer
Word Ways
The vocabulary of English contains anywhere from three-quarters of a million to one million words - by far the largest in the history of humankind. Despite this impressive accomplishment, many words in English have to do double duty and convey more than one meaning. As a result, one word can function as the opposite of two very different words.
Answers And Solutions
Word Ways
Answers and solutions to the puzzles contained in this issue.
Front Cover And Publication Information
Front Cover And Publication Information
Word Ways
Front cover and publication information for this issue, including a table of contents.
Words With Unusual Shapes, Alan Frank
Words With Unusual Shapes, Alan Frank
Word Ways
Previous articles in Word Ways have discussed such matters as the words with the most hyphens, words with internal capital letters, and various symbols which appear as entries in Webster's Second. These can all be characterized as word shapes. This article will present some of the ways in which shapes can be unusual, including examples and a quiz.
Rivers Of Type, Fritzi Striebel
Rivers Of Type, Fritzi Striebel
Word Ways
What we have called rivers of type might be defined as those white portions between the printed words on a page of type which sometime form significant patterns. Discovering this phenomenon for the first time, I wondered why it had taken me so long, half my life in fact. I made a hobby of collecting rare examples, trying to find the longest river, the tallest vertical, the longest angle. They have a fugitive quality which adds zest to the search.
The Portmanteau Not Taken, Edward R. Wolpow
The Portmanteau Not Taken, Edward R. Wolpow
Word Ways
Lewis Carroll discussed portmanteau words in his exposition on the poem Jabberwocky. The two words MISERABLE and FLIMSY produced a hybrid MIMSY, incorporating some of the letters and some of the meanings of both. But why not FLISERABLE? The portmanteau word, also known as the blend, has many examples in English.
Food Subtractives: Losing -Ed And Ly, Michael Smith
Food Subtractives: Losing -Ed And Ly, Michael Smith
Word Ways
A lot of strange things have been happening to our food in the past thirty or forty years, many of which I would prefer not to think about - maybe even know about. As our technology has developed, the various food industries have attempted in numerous ways to "improve" our food; many of their attempts have involved adding chemicals to "improve" taste, texture, color, aroma, shelf life, profits, etc. Of course, not everyone has been in favor of such improvements. Among some groups there has been a great hue and cry over the use of food additives; but this minor …
The Language Of Space, A. Ross Eckler
The Language Of Space, A. Ross Eckler
Word Ways
The Language of Space is an artificial language developed by the late W. John Weilgart, a linguist and psychotherapist. Unlike other artificial languages such as Esperanto and Volapuk, its words are constructed out of an alphabet of 31 basic concepts, each depicted by a symbol (a plus, a circle, a triangle, a wavy line, etc.) and an alphabetic letter.
On Constructing Constrained Poetry, Howard W. Bergerson
On Constructing Constrained Poetry, Howard W. Bergerson
Word Ways
The late mathematician Eric Temple Bell wrote science fiction stories for pulp magazines back in the 1920s and 1930s under the pen name John Taine, an activity which was said to be an embarrassment to his colleagues. I read many science fiction stories back in that time, including some by John Taine about whom I then knew nothing.
Metalinguistic Thoughts At Random, A. Ross Eckler
Metalinguistic Thoughts At Random, A. Ross Eckler
Word Ways
Below, dear reader, you will encounter perhaps the longest English-language literary isogram ever constructed: every word therein is unique. While reading, please watch carefully for inadvertent duplications (hopefully, they appear impossible to find).
Poetic Justice, Walter Shedlofsky
Poetic Justice, Walter Shedlofsky
Word Ways
Police Lieutenant Arthur Jamison was not pleased with Sergeant Johnson. Despite seventeen years on the force, his black and gray hair needed a haircut, while a paunch was evident behind the unpressed uniform.
D'Ou Etes-Vous?, Don Laycock
D'Ou Etes-Vous?, Don Laycock
Word Ways
There are only a few possiblilties for naming the inhabitants of places in the United States: New Yorker, Chicagoan, Philadelphian, Bostionian, Scrantonite. There may be more exotic forms for those from towns with French or Spanish names, but the possibilities fall far short of even Britain, where Oxonians come from Oxford, Cantabrigians from Cambridge, Liverpudlians from Liverpool, and Mancunians from Manchester. In my home town of Newcastle in New South Wales, we used to pride ourselves on our knowledge of Latin, calling ourselves Novocastrians.
Manifestly Manifolded Manias, Paul Hellweg
Manifestly Manifolded Manias, Paul Hellweg
Word Ways
Here we have a listing of manifestly manifolded manias, which is to say that the following collection of mania-words is obviously diverse. And diverse it is: nearly three hundred manias are identified and named herein. They range from the relatively benign DOROMANIAC (someone who compulsively gives presents) to the downright murderous ANDROPHONOMANIAC (someone with homicidal tendencies). In between these extremes, there are undoubtedly manias which will strike responsive chords in all of us.
Gary Gray, Meet Edna Dean, A. Ross Eckler
Gary Gray, Meet Edna Dean, A. Ross Eckler
Word Ways
Names with interesting logological properties are a source of fascination to the logologist, particularly if they belong to real-life individuals. This article describes the results of a search through more than one hundred telephone directories of U.S. cities or metropolitan areas, in quest of people whose first names can be transposed to form their last name.
Kickshaws, Will Shortz
This Quiz Is A Hit, Leonard R.N. Ashley
This Quiz Is A Hit, Leonard R.N. Ashley
Word Ways
We hope to have a hit, at least, with this quiz which asks you to think of slang expressions containing the word "hit." See if you can hit on the answers to all or most of these posers I hit you with. If you get 15 or 20, consider yourself to have hit it big. Answers can be found in Answers and Solutions at the end of this issue.
Varieties Of American English, Maxey Brooke
Varieties Of American English, Maxey Brooke
Word Ways
Language has sometimes been compared with a tree: from a a trunk grow limbs, from the limbs grow branches, and from the branches grow twigs. Unlike a tree, there are cross-connections between limbs and branches, and even with the tree trunk itself. In this study, the trunk of the language tree is the English of Great Britain during the late seventeenth century. Three great limbs that have grown from this trunk are American English (including Canadian), Australian English (sometimes called Strine). and South African English.