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Articles 961 - 990 of 4911
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
Semi-Pseudo-Plurals And Semi-Quasi-Pseudo-Plurals, T.A. Hall
Semi-Pseudo-Plurals And Semi-Quasi-Pseudo-Plurals, T.A. Hall
Word Ways
A recent perusal of Webster's Third New International Dictionary has uncovered a number of pseudo-plurals and quasi-pseudo-plurals that were not included in my article in the last issue of this journal. These new examples are listed in Figure 1 and Figure 2 respectively.
In Your Mind's Ear, Ron Singer
In Your Mind's Ear, Ron Singer
Word Ways
"Hmm. A metaphor that melds body parts. 'In the mind's eye'?"
Ladies' Diary Riddle -- An Answer, Ronnie Kon
Ladies' Diary Riddle -- An Answer, Ronnie Kon
Word Ways
The answer to the Riddle that Faith Eckler asked about so long ago is an Oven. I kid you not.
Special Words, T.A. Hall
Special Words, T.A. Hall
Word Ways
In two recent articles in this journal, Susan Thorpe identifies schwa as the phonetic symbol of English which can be represented by the most letters of the alphabet.
Totally Extreme Words, Susan Thorpe
Totally Extreme Words, Susan Thorpe
Word Ways
Consider the word CLIFF. The first letter (C) has an alphabetical value of 3; the last letter (F) a value of 6. Coincidentally, the total value of the whole word is 36. CLIFF is what I call a totally extreme word. However, it doesn't end there. The total value of the middle letters situated between C and F is 27, which is 9 times the value of the first letter, C.
Alphabetical Antonyms, A. Ross Eckler
Alphabetical Antonyms, A. Ross Eckler
Word Ways
During 1993 Nyr Indictor published the short-lived N is for Newsletter, a journal devoted to "alphabets, alphabet books, and alphabet memorabilia for alphabet lovers." The September issue contained the following challenge: "Create an alphabet of antonyms, that is, pairs of words that begin with the same letter that are in some way opposites, like aerobic and anaerobic, author and authoress, or ask and answer." A large number were published in the October/November issue, including a complete set that I submitted. The following selection is taken from that list.
Eskimo Words For Sea-Ice, A. Ross Eckler
Eskimo Words For Sea-Ice, A. Ross Eckler
Word Ways
Linguistics professor Geoffrey Pullum demolished the Boas-Whorf claim that there are 200 Eskimo words for snow, in his book The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax. A new version of this myth shows up in Mariana Gosnell's Ice.
Answers And Solutions
Word Ways
Answers and solutions to the puzzles contained in this issue.
Back Cover
Word Ways
Back cover, including a tribute to Howard W. Bergerson by Zorn Radisavljevic.
Tautonymic Sights And Sounds, Susan Thorpe
Tautonymic Sights And Sounds, Susan Thorpe
Word Ways
Most tautonymic words, as well as consisting of a repeated letter/group of letters, are also phonetically tautonymic, the 2 identical letter groups having identical pronunciations. On the other hand, there exist tautonymic words with a difference in pronunciation between the 2 identical letter groups. The degree of audible difference varies. it may be obvious as in ISIS, a river in Oxford, and in the TSETSE fly; or the difference may be more subtle.
Neologisms L Through O, J. James Mancusco
Neologisms L Through O, J. James Mancusco
Word Ways
An alphabetic listing of neologisms, letters L through O.
More What Four?, Steve Kahan
More What Four?, Steve Kahan
Word Ways
Like Schubert's symphony number 8 in B minor, the listings in the following quiz are unfinished. More precisely, each of the twenty-five questions consists of a pair of word fragments from which the same final quartet of letters is missing. For instance, if LUL/WAL appeared below, then appending the letters LABY to the end of each would reveal the words LULLABY and WALLABY. Appropriately, score four points for any duo which is identified correctly.
Supermarket, Martin Gardner
Playing With Accordion Words, Richard Lederer
Playing With Accordion Words, Richard Lederer
Word Ways
Garnering twelve Academy Award nominations and four Oscars, including Best Picture, The King's Speech became, on February 28, the most honored film of the year. Among its many excellencies is the double entendre in its title. The word Speech in The King's Speech means the speaking of George VI, the stammerer who did not want to become king. At the same time and in the same space, the word Speech means the particular address, in 1939, that King George VI delivered to his British subjects exhorting them to join in battle against the Germans.
Anagram Quiz 2, A. Anil
Anagram Quiz 2, A. Anil
Word Ways
The clues are definitive anagrams or polyanagrams of the answers. Most are reversibles. Answers are out back.
Book Review: "World Of Anagrams", Karen Farrell
Book Review: "World Of Anagrams", Karen Farrell
Word Ways
A book review for Zoran Radisavljevic's World of Anagrams.
Kickshaws, David Morice
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.
More Hot Air, Faith W. Eckler
More Hot Air, Faith W. Eckler
Word Ways
An email from Jeff Grant calls into question my conclusion that the solution to the riddle under discussion is "A Hot Air Balloon." Using the website Google Books, he found that it appeared in the 1782 edition of The Ladies' Diary or Women's Almanac, where its author is identified as Miss Eliza Hurst. It appeared again in the October 6, 1783 edition of The Weekly Entertainer, another British publication, this time without an author given.
The Forgone Limericks Of Lewis Carroll, Jim Puder
The Forgone Limericks Of Lewis Carroll, Jim Puder
Word Ways
For a fact, Lewis Carroll was well acquainted with limericks from an early age onward. We know this because there has come down to us a set of four original limericks which he "published" when he was only thirteen and still best known as Charles Dodgson. It is also the case that Carroll could hardly have failed to notice the phenomenon when, over the next few decades, Edward Lear's several books of illustrated limericks met with enormous popular success. And it is certainly true that, over the course of his writing career, Carroll published a good deal of light verse …
"X" Marks The Spot, Steve Kahan
"X" Marks The Spot, Steve Kahan
Word Ways
Indeed, "X" does mark the spot - in this case, the final spot - in the twenty words that this quiz solicits. The remaining, arranged alphabetically, require suitable permutation prior to attachment of the letter "X" at the end of each. A perfect score here is "X"cellent!
Anagram Arithmetic, A. Anil
Anagram Arithmetic, A. Anil
Word Ways
There are only two known pure number name anagram equations in English except rearrangements of their words. Naturally I exclude the infinite tautologies that swap whole digits. It's a matter of opinion whether to count tautologies that swap a non-digit suffix. Such suffix swaps occur in the teens in Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, German, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, transliterated Russian, Slovene and Arabic, and no doubt other languages, but not Dutch, Welsh or transliterated Hebrew, Hindi, Chinese or Japanese.
"Let's Push The Envelope Out Of The Box": More Mixed And Mashed Metaphors, Don Hauptman
"Let's Push The Envelope Out Of The Box": More Mixed And Mashed Metaphors, Don Hauptman
Word Ways
I last wrote about mixed metaphors in in the November 2008 issue of Word Ways. A friend who read that article chastised me because not all the examples I cited meet the strict definition of a mixed metaphor. After some consideration, I conceded that she had a point.
The Art Of Magic, Oscar Thumpbindle
The Art Of Magic, Oscar Thumpbindle
Word Ways
On anyone's list of the world's greatest mathemagicians the name Arthur Benjamin would most certainly appear. He has recently been showing a truly astounding mathematical card trick. I first saw Art present it at a Gathering for Gardner and later saw him give it again at a Mathematical Association of America regional meeting. The Mathematical Gazette, Vol. 95, No. 531, Nov. 2010 contains "To your hearts' content" by Hang Chen and Curtis Cooper which describes the trick. They said "Arthur Benjamin showed the amazing mathematical card trick during the 2007 annual meeting of the AMS/MAA in New Orleans."
Fewest Words In Rearranged Alphabets, A. Ross Eckler
Fewest Words In Rearranged Alphabets, A. Ross Eckler
Word Ways
Unless one is dealing with a relatively large dictionary, it is not difficult to rearrange the alphabet so that no four-letter heterograms (words with no repeated letters) can be read off in order. However, it appears impossible to achieve this for three-letter heterograms for even a small dictionary. The purpose of this article is to exhibit an alphabetic rearrangement (not unique) that minimizes the number of three-letter Official Scrabble Players Dictionary heterograms.
Word Rings On Lettered Footballs, Mike Keith
Word Rings On Lettered Footballs, Mike Keith
Word Ways
A traditional football (soccer ball) is a combination of 20 pentagons and 12 hexagons arranged in the familiar pattern shown here. Suppose a letter of the alphabet is placed on each white hexagon. Can this be done such that the five hexagons that form a ring around each of the twelve black pentagons spell a word when read clockwise? The answer is yes, and finding such labelling makes a nice puzzle - especially if solution by hand, rather than computer, is required.
Neologisms: F Through K, J. James Mancuso
Neologisms: F Through K, J. James Mancuso
Word Ways
An alphabetical listing of neologisms, F through K.
Say Cheese!, Steve Kahan
Say Cheese!, Steve Kahan
Word Ways
To elicit a smile, a photographer will often ask his subject to "say cheese." Imagine his astonishment if the response he received were a list of twenty different varieties of cheese. That is precisely what appears below in a somewhat disguised format. Each of the words presented there contains an errant letter. Identify it, replace it with another, and permute the resulting collection to reveal the answer. Twenty out of twenty entitles you to be dubbed a big cheese!
Changing Fashions In Names For Girls, A. Ross Eckler
Changing Fashions In Names For Girls, A. Ross Eckler
Word Ways
Females can often be dated by their names: how many teenage Florences exist, or elderly Brittanys? My middle daughter has often taken me to task for saddling her with the name Lois, usually associated with women a quarter-century older. Perhaps I should have heeded Alexander Pope's 1711 advice, substituting names for words.