Digital Commons Network^™

Letter Lengths, Eric Iverson, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Define the length of a letter as the sum of the lengths of its component straight lines and arcs (ignoring details such as serifs). Thus, the length of V is a little more than twice the length of I in most fonts, as O is greater than C, and B and R both greater than P. To fix ideas, we define the uppercase letters as a combination of straight lines and arcs of circles. Nearly all the letters can be embedded in rectangles 2 units by 1 unit in size, except for C, O, W and Q, all of which …

Frequency Heterograms

Word Ways

I. Transposals of ETAOIN SHRDLU

Etaoin shrdlu, the twelve most used English letters in order by an old count, is an entry in Webster's 3rd (W3) as the Linotype not-to-be-printed marker slug. When I noticed that malnourished misses by one letter (t) being a transposals of it I was tantalised and sought a full transposal.

A New Fourteen-Letter Transposition, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

The Saturday 17 December 2005 World Wide Words (Issue 472), edited by Michael Quinion, exhibited the neologism SINISTROSPHERE: "This has started to appear online as a disparaging collective term for bloggers with left-wing political affiliations. Its opposite is the dextrosphere, a sweeter-sounding and must less sinister term. Both words are based on blogosphere, a collective term for the whole blogging environment."

Enlarging Dutch Tautonyms, Hugo Brandt Corstius

Word Ways

In the table below, I present a near-complete set of Dutch words that consist of tautonyms to which have been added a single letter, either in front, in the middle, or behind. A few of the words (italicized) can be used either in the first or third column. Koekoek and wouwouw are bird names.

Brain Teaser, Ove Michaelsen

Word Ways

Place a new word in front of each word on this list, forming either word or a common two-word phrase. What do the 102 new words have in common? Where does LOOSE belong on this list?

Un-Truthful Words

Word Ways

Four is the definitive "truthful word" because it has four letters. "Unfour" is also truthful as it doesn't have four letters, but is untruthful as it's not a real word. Following an excursion into the un-section of the dictionary I found heaps of truthful and untruthful words, as well as some both truthful and untruthful--like unfour but real words. Here's a sampling, mostly of linguistic interest.

Kickshaws, Dave Morice

Word Ways

A collection of linguistic kickshaws.

Etymology Of Sexual Terms, Leonard R. N. Ashley

Word Ways

Sex is often discussed in the allegedly more respectable terminology derived from classical languages, but sometimes Anglo-Saxon "four-letter words" are boldly employed. Seldom do we think of where these words came from. Can you state the terms derived as follows? Some are of debatable origin, but i do not include those (such as pimp) "of unknown origin". Extra points for virtue if any or all are unfamiliar to you!

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to the puzzles and games contained in this issue.

Bookstore Names For Fun And Profit, Bennie Hollingsworth

Word Ways

If the Internet has done anything, it has caused a proliferation of "bookish" activity - dusting off, re-reading, swapping, borrowing, buying and selling. I, for one, has gotten caught up in this melee. My general modus operandi is to do garage sales and pass the wonderful bargains I find on to other anxious Internet book freaks.

Back Cover

Word Ways

Instructions to authors wishing to contribute to Word Ways.

Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 39 Issue 1

Word Ways

Front cover and publication information for this issue.

"Did You Just Make That Up?" Puns In Everyday Conversation, Don Hauptman

Word Ways

The hallmark of the compleat punster is the ability to work puns into real-life situations - and to do so in an appropriate, natural and spontaneous way. Unless one is skilled at ad-libbing, it's best to have a repertoire of material to draw upon. Your objective is to be regarded as clever and witty rather than irritating. But opinions may differ.

Lakesha And Kushawn: A Cultural Linguistic Approach To Afro-American Onomastics, Clara J Senif

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This thesis is a cultural linguistic study of Afro-American naming patterns from the 1960's through the present. I show that personal name choices are reflective of the cultural-historical influences present at the time that any given name choice is made. In the Afro-American community this influence is reflected in the manifestation of an entirely new pattern of names which are herein labeled as 'constructive'. Constructive names are formed by the use of one or more 'freefixes' and will be shown to be illustrative of the Afro-American desire for ethnic identity collectively and individually.

Palindromic Word Squares, Rex Gooch

Word Ways

A word square (n-square) consists of a n rows, each containing a different n-letter word, so that the first column has the same word as the first raw, and so on. A palindromic square is a word square in which the words are palindromes, with as many as possible being different. The investigation reported below was inspired by Zoran Radisavlijevic's article (W05-178).

Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 38 Issue 4

Word Ways

Front cover and publication information for this issue.

Editorial

Word Ways

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Dmitri Borgmann's death. To commemorate it we present three pieces: a final article by Dmitri from the editorial files, the description of a final chapter of Language on Vacation which Scribner's decided to eliminate from the book, and an imaginary visit by Dmitri to the UN in 1967 penned by the talented Australian logologist John Holgate.

The Borgmann Apocrypha, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Dmitri Borgmann's Language on Vacation, published by Scribner's in 1965, is widely recognized as the Bible of logology; it is the first nonpuzzle book entirely devoted to letter-play. Long out of print, it has been eagerly sought by logologists in second-hand bookstores where, fortunately, it can often be purchased at prices of five to ten dollars.

Logological Epistolography, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

One of the uses to which almost all of us frequently put the English language is the writing of letters-personal, business, or poison-pen. All sorts of books have, therefore, been published, advising us how to write letters courteously and effectively. Such books invariably include model our condolences. Each potential uses of these exemplars must, of course, modify them to suit his or her particular circumstances, needs and preferences.

Colloquy

Word Ways

A collection of responses to previously published articles.

Word Sudoku

Word Ways

Sudoku, a fairly new type of puzzle from Japan, has very recently become popular wordwide. It involves placing the digits 1-9 into a 9x9 grid which is divided into nine 3x3 squares such as those below. Enough numbers are placed in the grid as clues to enable the puzzler to solve it. The object is to make all nine rows, all nine columns and all nine 3x3 squares each contain all nine digits. This means that no row, column or 3x3 square can have more than one of each digit.

A Day At The You Knighted Nay Shuns, John Holgate

Word Ways

It was a chilly afternoon on December the seventh, 1967, the 26th anniversary of Pearl Harbour. Dmitri Borgmann was sitting in the reading room of the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue. He had come down from Oak Park, Illinois for a few days to do research on synonyms for baldness after noticing that his hairline was receding.

Opening A Can Of Words, Don Hauptman

Word Ways

Although my Word Ways article are usually light, involving puns and other forms of wordplay, in this issue I'm focusing on a weightier topic: the state of the language. So let's get serious.

Battus In Wonderland, Hugo Brandt Corstius

Word Ways

Editor's Note: No knowledge of Dutch is required to discover the letterplay hidden in this fable.

A True Pyramid

Word Ways

The term "pyramid" is used in two ways in logology: 1) a "word pyramid" is a word ladder in which each step adds a letter -eg, I IN FIN FIND FIEND FRIEND; 2) a "pyramid word" has an abstract 'pyramid' of letter frequencies -eg, REMEMBERER with 1B, 2Ms, 3Rs, 4Es. Both of these misuse the word pyramid to mean triangle. A pyramid is three dimensional -- a polygonal base with triangular sides that meet at a point. The base can have three or any higher number of sides but it's usually thought of as a square because the Egyptian pyramids.

Looping, Grouping And Aligning The Vowels, Susan Thorpe

Word Ways

Firstly, a reminder that an AEIOU word is one in which the 5 major vowels occur just once, in any order. The AEIOU words of current concern, however, are limited to those in which the vowels occur in alphabetical circular order or reverse alphabetical circular order. Most of the examples below are solid words; a few hyphenated designations are included but phrases are not admitted. The listings in 'Looping the Vowels' and 'Grouping the Vowels' read across the page. Unreferenced words can be found in the Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, unless specified otherwise. The sources of other words are …

New Transposals Of California Placenames, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

After my virtual trip around Great Britain and my discovery of 600 new placename transposals (see August 2003 Word Ways), I decided to attempt a similar trip around California. Here are transposals for one hundred California placenames, all transposals being in LeXpert, the Scrabble player's software tool.

Dog Doo? Good God!, Win Emmons

Word Ways

Many additional palindromes can be found on my website http://www.palindromania.com.

From Djeffrey To Jyfree, Jeff Grant

Word Ways

Over the years I have seen many different variants of my first name, Jeffrey. This is an attempt to catalogue some of them. 400 examples were found on the Internet using the Google search program. The subset below contains 124 apparently genuine variants, all of which are probably pronounced more or less the same as Jeffrey. The ones with a plus are recorded on the Kabalarians online name database (www.kabalarians, "How important is your name?"), and those with an asterisk are old forms.

Kickshaws, Dave Morice

Word Ways

A collection of linguistic kickshaws.