Digital Commons Network^™

On Beyond Zillion, Nyr Indictor

Word Ways

When Buddha undertook to court Princess Gopa, legend has it, her father had him compete with five other suitors in an array of physical and mental competitions. At one point Buddha's mental prowess was to be tested by the mathematician Arjuna. Arjuna asked him to name all the numbers above koti, the Sanskrit word for 10^7.

A Soup Can Can Can-Can; Can You?, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

In December 1995, puzzlemeister Will Shortz of Weekend Edition on National Public Radio issued the following challenge to listeners: write a grammatically-correct and readily-understandable statement that contains the same word four or more times in a row, as "That Texan can't drill a well well. Well, well drilling isn't easy." Over 800 replies were received, including such old chestnuts as "John, where James had had 'had', had had 'had had'.

Sematrimagic Squares Of Order 3, Lee Sallows

Word Ways

Sematria is the name I suggested for a new kind of gematria introduced and discussed at length in "Base 27: The Key to a New Gematria" in the May 1993 Word Ways. In sematria a string of letters is interpreted as a unique integer written in a base 27 notion that uses A=1, B=2, etc. along with an extra symbol, say "_", for zero.

The Life Of Riley, Walter Fretlaw

Word Ways

England's palindromic town of New Bybwen is one of the greatest tourist attractions for wordsmiths, logologists, recreational linguists and lay fellows of the Order of Saint Aldhelm. Most visitors eventually wind up at the town's celebrated watering hold, the Drab & Bard, hoping to catch the eye of its prettiest serving wench, Elsie Isle. One such visitor was a Bostonian of Irish extraction known only by his surname of Riley. To be accepted by the natives one has to feature in some form of palindrome and the following anecdotes concern Riley's New Bybwenization.

Photon What?, Dan Tilque

Word Ways

I recently started a new job at Photo Kinetics, a company that makes test instruments for fiber optic cable. Posted in the office is a collection of the various ways that the company name has been spelled in correspondence. These range from simple typos to highly imaginative spellings. Some of the more interesting spellings are:

Kickshaws, David Morice

Word Ways

A collection of linguistic kickshaws.

A Symmetric Bestiary, Leonard Gordon

Word Ways

In February 1995, "A Word Graph Bestiary" presented all possible graph shapes for words having five different letters. On the next three pages, I exhibit a sample of symmetrical "beasts" corresponding to words of six to nine different letters: fat man, thin man, ape man, crab, girl jumping rope, etc.

Mad Adam?, John E. Connett

Word Ways

When Adam first met Eve in Eden, he politely introduced himself: Madam. I'm Adam. (Eve should have been named Iris so that she could have replied: Sir, I'm Iris.) Had Adam been more loquacious,k he could have used any of the following palindromic introduction -- although some might have led Eve to doubt his sexual orientation and his sanity!

Telephone Words, Rex Gooch

Word Ways

Problem 1642, "Telephone Synonyms", in the Journal of Recreational Mathematics 21:2, pp. 156-8, 1989, concerned the relationship between words and US telephone numbers. The letters Q and Z are omitted, then the digits 2 to 9 are assigned respectively to ABC, DEF, GHI, JKL, MNO, PRS, TUV and WXY. Thus DOG is dialled as 364.

Variations On A Palindromic Theme, Howard Richler

Word Ways

In a May 1991 Word Ways article entitled "Palindromic Construction", I explained how many palindromic sentences have inner structures that allow for substituting other words to form new palindromes. For example, in the well-known palindrome ABLE WAS I ERE I SAW ELBA, the palindrome is composed of an inner palindrome WAS I ERE I SAW and the words ABLE and ELBA which spell each other when reversed. Thus any word pairs which spell each other backwards will keep the palindrome in order. Two puerile examples that fulfill this criterion are ANAL WAS I ERE I SAW LANA and A SLUT …

A Chantant Ant Anthology, Roger E. Rondeau

Word Ways

Of the trillions of insects that crawl over this earth, the lowly ants are the most ubiquitous, conspicuous, and universally recognized. They have also been in the news lately. A Harvard professor recently won a Pulitzer prize for his book about ants and their societal behavior. Not long ago, a Science magazine article revealed that a species of leaf-cutter ants has been gardening fungi for 23 million years. So they're not only everywhere, they've been there forever.

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

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

Back Cover

Word Ways

Instructions to authors wishing to contribute to Word Ways.

Nationali-Tease, Stephen Sniderman

Word Ways

The words we use to refer to people from various countries do not always follow a predictable pattern. Thus, someone from Switzerland is Swiss, from Wales Welsh, and from Holland Dutch. Each sentence below contains the name of a country and an adjective describing the nationality of the country's inhabitants. Letters that are identical in both words have been omitted. In each case the answer is unique.

An Investigation Into The Linguistic Evidence And Classification Of Dialect Variation In Biblical Hebrew, Douglas K. Wilson

Faculty Dissertations

The following is a study of dialectal variations in the Masoretic text and classification of selected variations. Introductory material includes discussion of the use of "dialect" for regional, chronological, and stylistic distinctives.

This study is presented in two parts. Part one presents a case for the usage of dialect variation by writers and personalities in the Hebrew Bible. Part two offers analysis of current approaches to the classification of variants into chronological, regional, and stylistic distinctives.

Part one begins with an investigation of the Torah, presenting dialectal evidence from Genesis and Deuteronomy relating to vocabulary, geography, and tribal differences. Evidence …

An American Army --, Edward Wolpow

Word Ways

The times seem to call for an updating of the well-known acrostical war-horse "The Siege of Belgrade". I have kept the lines as in the original -- omitting J, and ending with a second A.

Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 29 Issue 1

Word Ways

Front cover and publication information for this issue.

Making The Alphabet Dance, David Morice

Word Ways

This is the book that puts it all together--the logological advances in letterplay that have been accumulating for the past 30 years. Since most of these discoveries appeared first in Word Ways, what better person to attempt the complex task of assembling the puzzle than editor Ross Eckler, who has edited the mag since 1970? Ross's new book, just published by St. Matin's Press, presents the material in eight chapters (83 selections) progressing from simple to more complex forms and containing dozens of illustrations, tables and lists interspersed throughout the text. At times, it works like a chess manual …

Retro-Active Words, Richard Lederer

Word Ways

Have you noticed that a number of simple nouns have recently acquired new adjectives?

Splendid Symbolism, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

1 Mr. Bos of Eindhoven read the title-word in Vestdijk's Else Bohler and has extracted the prachtsymboliek [splendid symbolism] form it: in this word there appears no single letter more than once! That applies also to words such as dampkringslucht [atmospheric air] and gymnastiekvrouw [lady gymnast], but it is not easy to discover long words with this unique property.

Drow Rot Or Word?, Peter Newby

Word Ways

In the classic tradition of the famous SATOR word square. I present at the left one example of what may be considered a definitive English-language reversal square -- if you accept my argument. All the words used are perfectly valid:

The Panamanian Rejects, John E. Connett

Word Ways

It is not well-known that the noted palindromist Leigh Mercer made a number of false starts before creating the immortal A MAN, A PLAN, A CANAL--PANAMA! Fortunately, his charlady, aware of Mercer's fame, made a practice of saving his wastebasket scraps. These, found among her effects after her death, were recently auctioned off by Sotheby's for a handsome sum, and can now be revealed to the world of logology.

Colloquy

Word Ways

A collection of responses to previously published articles.

Mallarme's Cigar-Sonnet: Part 1, Paul Maxim

Word Ways

Toute l'ame resumee

Quand lente nous l'expirons

Dans plusieurs ronds de fumee

Abolis en autres ronds

He Hates Smith, David Morice

Word Ways

Jeremy Smith, a graduate student in anthropology, doesn't like his last name. One afternoon at Donutland, where he works, he started telling me about the problems his name has given him. This transcript contains mostly quotes from Jeremy, with my words appearing in italics.

I'Ve Broken My Word, Leonard Gordon

Word Ways

This is a special kind of search-a-word puzzle. It may be new. Words are built from frags instead of single letters. Each word consists of two but mainly three frags in a line. Read in an orthogonal or diagonal direction; for example, VERY DELI is read as DELIVERY. Note USE TEN HYPO (HYPOTENUSE) on a diagonal in the upper left.

Zzyzx, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

In an article in the February 1974 Word Ways, Dmitri Borgmann nominated Zzyzx Springs as the alphabetically-last United States place name. THis name apparently is in no gazetteer (even the comprehensive Ran McNally Commercial Atlas and Marketing Guide); he cites as his source an undated map published by the Automobile Club of Southern California, covering San Bernardino County. He characterized it as

Phobias From A To Z, Jeff Grant

Word Ways

Most of us are probably aware that someone with a morbid fear of strangers or foreigners is suffering from XENOPHOBIA. Similarly, a person with an abnormal aversion to closed spaces is the victim of CLAUSTROPHOBIA, while others who dread large open areas are displaying AGORAPHOBIA. Many people have an exaggerated fear of spiders, but would probably not know the name of this if it were not for the movie ARACHNOPHOBIA.

Whimsical German Surnames, Frederick Crane

Word Ways

All European languages, probably, have some family names that are a bit comical in effect. Some examples:

Shiftgrams: My Deft Ruse, Susan Thorpe

Word Ways

A simple letter-shift is the change of one word into another word by shifting each of its letters n steps along the alphabet. Thus, shifted three steps, the letters COLD appropriately make FROG. Similarly, but with the alphabet arranged in a circle (A following Z), it takes just nine steps to persuade the exhausted rabbit to SLEEP, BUNNY.