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Pattern Wordlists, David Shulman
Pattern Wordlists, David Shulman
Word Ways
The editor of Word Ways, A. Ross Eckler, has already described and reviewed the pattern wordlists of Professor Jack Levine, Department to Mathematics of North Carolina State University (February 1972, November 1972, and August 1973). These wordlists are so excellent that if you can buy, borrow or steal them, by all means do it.
A Challenge, Dmitri A. Borgmann
A Challenge, Dmitri A. Borgmann
Word Ways
It is with a profound sense not only of humility but also of awe that I digested Professor Houdini's mind-expanding logological analysis in the November 1973 issue of Word Ways. It may, perhaps, be deemed not wholly inappropriate if I attempt a reply of sorts, feeble as it must inevitably seem by comparison with Houdini's brilliant, unparalleled display.
Malaproverbs, Mary J. Youngquist, Harry W. Hazard
Malaproverbs, Mary J. Youngquist, Harry W. Hazard
Word Ways
Take a familiar proverb (a rolling stone gathers no moss), remove a phrase (rolling stone), insert an equally-familiar one (rolling pin), and what do you have? A malaproverb, that's what. Here's more.
The Twenty-One Words, A. Ross Eckler
The Twenty-One Words, A. Ross Eckler
Word Ways
Problem: Using any 21 alphabetic letters of your choice, each one exactly five times, construct a group of 21 five-letter words with the properties that (1) any two of the 21 letters being used will be found in exactly one word, and (2) and two of the 21 words will have exactly one letter in common.
Extending The Number Names, John Candelaria
Extending The Number Names, John Candelaria
Word Ways
In the February 1968 issue of Word Ways, Dmitri Borgmann briefly reviewed the history of number nomenclatures. The first twenty number names, each one denoting a number one thousand times its immediate predecessor, are found in many reference works.
A New Reference, Ramona J. Quincunx
A New Reference, Ramona J. Quincunx
Word Ways
In 1949, the G. & C. Merriam Company, then publishing the Second Edition of Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, issued a new publication, Webster's Geographical Dictionary. It was, on the surface, both a companion volume to Webster's Biographical Dictionary, first published in 1943, and an expansion of the Gazetteer in the unabridged dictionary, a section that then embraced only 30,000 names, compared with about 40,000 in the new and independent reference work.
Punctured Poetry, Mary J. Youngquist, Harry W. Hazard
Punctured Poetry, Mary J. Youngquist, Harry W. Hazard
Word Ways
In the February 1975 Kickshaws, Dave Silverman introduced Word Ways readers to Richard Armour's Punctured Poems (Prentice-Hall, 1966), a literary tour de force in which implausible second lines are appended to famous first lines. Actually,t his concept has been around awhile, and has been independently discovered by many people.
Difference Words Ride Again, Tom Pulliam
Difference Words Ride Again, Tom Pulliam
Word Ways
What is a difference word? The concept can best be introduced by an example. The letters of the word FORM occupy positions 6, 15, 18 and 13 in the alphabet. The difference between 6 and 15 is 9; between 15 and 18, 3; and between 18 and 13, 5. The letters of the word ICE occupy positions 9, 3 and 5 in the alphabet; therefore, ICE is the difference word of FORM.
A Classification Of Words, Maxey Brooke
A Classification Of Words, Maxey Brooke
Word Ways
One of the pleasures of the logologist is investigating the relations between pairs of words. Words can be characterized in four ways: spelling (or appearance), sound (or pronunciation), meaning (or definition), and origin (or derivation). Two words can be either identical or different with respect to each of these properties; thus, there are 16 different ways in which word-pairs can be classified, ranging from identical in all four respects to different in all four respects. The 14 intermediate cases, those in which a pair of words are identical in some respects but differ in others, are the ones of most …
The A-E-I-O-U-Y Problem, Darryl Francis
The A-E-I-O-U-Y Problem, Darryl Francis
Word Ways
The August 1968 Word Ways contained a short problem entitled Vowel Rotation which ran as follows.
Final Bigrams, Philip M. Cohen
Final Bigrams, Philip M. Cohen
Word Ways
In the May 1975 Word Ways, I presented a list of words (using open sources) utilizing those initial bigrams not covered by Dmitri Borgmann in "Zero Redundancy" in Beyond Language (Scribner's, 1967). In this article, I similarly extend "Zero Redundancy Rides Again", Darryl Francis's final bigram word list which was originally published in the August 1970 Word Ways. Of his 570 examples, I reject BN BW DF DK FH GC JC JM KC KQ NB QH QU UJ XK ZW for various reasons.
Answers And Solutions
Word Ways
Answers and solutions to the puzzles contained in this issue.
Slang Around The House, Leonard R. N. Ashley
Slang Around The House, Leonard R. N. Ashley
Word Ways
It's as safe as houses (perfectly certain) that you know the meaning of playhouse and opera house, jailhouse and outhouse, greenhouse and whorehouse, and maybe there's even someone in the house who can list such varieties of doss house as the scratch house and the flea house. But can you define each of these listed below? Some are easy -- and for others you will have to look up the definitions freely given, on the house, in Answers and Solutions at the end of this issue.
Instructions To Authors
Word Ways
Instructions to authors wishing to contribute to the publication.
Successive De(Le(Ti)O)Ns, Tom Pulliam
Successive De(Le(Ti)O)Ns, Tom Pulliam
Word Ways
Fort hose unfamiliar with the concept, a successive word deletion is best defined by example. From a base word (PANTODON), excise a set of consecutive letters from the interior which form a word (TO). Join together the loose ends (PANDON) and repeat the process (AND). The letters remaining after the second excision (PON), containing the initial and terminal letters of the original word, form a third word. The number of words (in this case, three) into which the original word has been split is k; thus, PANTODON (TO, AND, PON) is a triple deletion.
Base Foreign Words, David Kahn
Base Foreign Words, David Kahn
Word Ways
As every computer programmer knows, numbers can be read in ways other than the decimal system we normally use. The decimal system is called "to the base ten" because it employs 10 digits: 0, 1, 2, ... , 9. But systems to different bases are also possible. Utopianists have proposed a duodecimal system using 12 "digits" because 12 is divisible by more factors (and hence mathematically handier) than 10. Computers use arithmetic to the base 2, because their circuitry admits of only two states -- on or off. Base 2 arithmetic employs only the digits 0 and 1.
Kickshaws, David L. Silverman
Kickshaws, David L. Silverman
Word Ways
Readers are invited to send kickshaws to the Associate Editor. Correspondents who wish a quick acknowledgement should enclose a self-addressed post card.
Front Cover, Publication Information
Front Cover, Publication Information
Word Ways
Front Cover, Publication Information, Table of Contents
Hard-To-Find Words In Web 3 (A-D), Ralph G. Beaman
Hard-To-Find Words In Web 3 (A-D), Ralph G. Beaman
Word Ways
The main purpose of a dictionary is to give information about words. One looks with some "word" in mind and either finds it exists by noting a boldface alphabetical entry for it; or, not finding it, concludes it does not exist. The latter conclusion is dangerous since the chosen dictionary may have elected to regard the word as too rare or obscene, it may have been missed, or the word sought is too new. There seems little excuse, however, for not listing words that in fact are given in boldface in the work. As this list proves, there are probably …
Automynorcagrams, Howard W. Bergerson
Automynorcagrams, Howard W. Bergerson
Word Ways
I have long ruminated over the problem of finding a logological form of composition as challenging and appealing as the palindrome, but in which (unlike the palindrome) any word could be used. The ideas that occurred to me all seemed deficient in one way or another. The logological interest of vocabularyclepts (anagramming the words of one poem into another) is dependent upon the existence of the parent poemfrom which they are made, and is nonexistent without them. Word-unit palindromes are an attractive possibility, but the composer must be resigned to the fact that "and the" implies "the and", to give …
An All-Consonant Crossword, Darryl Francis
An All-Consonant Crossword, Darryl Francis
Word Ways
In August 1973 we offered a crossword puzzle consisting solely of three-letter all-vowel (AEIOUY) words. Seeing this puzzle, Palmer Peterson of Lennox, South Dakota tried his hand at constructing an all-consonant puzzle using the same crossword pattern. We were most intrigued by his effort, but discovered that many of his words had been taken from references eighty years or more old. We decided to construct an all-consonant crossword using contemporary dictionaries, and evenly succeeded with the offering below, based solely on Webster's Second, Webster's Third, and The Oxford English Dictionary.
A 700-Word Palindrome, D. L. Polonsky
Front Cover, Publication Information
Front Cover, Publication Information
Word Ways
Front Cover, Publication Information, Table of Contents
Biliteral Crossword, E. S. Sande
Web 2: Imperfect But Lovable, Tom Pulliam
Web 2: Imperfect But Lovable, Tom Pulliam
Word Ways
Along with many other readers of Word Ways, I am a stanch admirer of Merriam-Webster's Second Edition. Unlike the austere and hospital-sterile Third Edition (the same genus, but a different species), it offers almost endless scope for the browser or the collector of curiousa. The things that most charm me can be broadly classified in two categories: inconsistencies or outright errors, and interesting definitions.
Piddletrenthide, Darryl Francis
Piddletrenthide, Darryl Francis
Word Ways
The London Times devotes a regular column to the reassignments of Church of England clerics. Buried among the announcements of August 21, 1974 was the following.
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 up to a month prior to publication of an issue will appear in that issue.
A Survey Of Letter-Frequencies, Leslie E. Card, A. Ross Eckler
A Survey Of Letter-Frequencies, Leslie E. Card, A. Ross Eckler
Word Ways
If one asks the man in the street (or even the average reader of Word Ways) for a listing of letters by frequency of occurrence, he is likely to come up with the linotyper's nonsense-phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. More serious students of letter-frequencies, such as solvers of monoalphabetic substitution ciphers, are likely to point out in addition that the frequencies of certain letters are so nearly alike (for example, A and O, or N and R) that the ordering depends upon the sample of letters tabulated. Although most people will readily understand that the listing is based on a sample of …
Initial Bigrams, Philip M. Cohen
Initial Bigrams, Philip M. Cohen
Word Ways
To my mind, an ideal hardcore logology project should satisfy two conditions: (1) it should be hard enough to force the investigator out of the cozy Webster's Second Unabridged (NI2) and Third Unabridged (NI3) nook, and (2) it should promise complete success -- every last hole filled -- with persistence. AN excellent example is the problem of finding words beginning with each of the 676 possible two-letter combinations, or bigrams. This problem is covered in the section "Zero Redundancy" (ZR) in Dmitri Borgmann's Beyond Language (Scribner's, 1967). Unfortunately, while Dmitri claimed words for 629 of the combinations, he listed only …
I Cue The Alphabet, Joseph T. Shipley
I Cue The Alphabet, Joseph T. Shipley
Word Ways
A collection of words and phrases beginning with each of the letters.