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Poetry And The Palindrome, Haim Kilov Aug 1987

Poetry And The Palindrome, Haim Kilov

Word Ways

Editor's Note: In the February 1984 Word Ways, Haim Kilov and his associate S. El'man translated an article by V. Khromov on Russian palindromes originally appearing in Nauka i Zhizn 9 (1970). This article alluded to an earlier one by Semyon Kirsanov (1906-1972), a well-known Soviet poet, in Nauka i Zhizn 7 (1966). The following is a translation of that article, with various amplifications in brackets. Note that certain Cyrillic letters transliterate into groups of English letters (ch, kh, sh, shch, ya, ye, yu, zh), marring the palindromic appearance. In addition there appear to be a few lines where Kirsanov …


Colloquy Aug 1987

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 at least one month prior to publication of an issue will appear in that issue.


A Recreational Linguistics Library, David Morice Aug 1987

A Recreational Linguistics Library, David Morice

Word Ways

The following article is adapted from a paper presented to the class "Foundations and Collections Development" in the University of Iowa's School of Library and Information Science. The professor, Gerald Hodges, commented on it in part: "It appears to me that you have done the unthinkable - build an enjoyable and entertaining collection for an academic setting... I do feel that your selection process was systematic, and I think you are on solid ground in going with those titles which had multiple favorable reviews. Your annotations not only tell me sufficient information about each title but do indeed justify the …


Jade, Darryl Francis Aug 1987

Jade, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

I have two daughters, Jade Roxann, who was born in 1981, and Elli Caroline, born in 1984. Over fifteen years ago, I wrote an article for Word Ways entitled "Caroline" which appeared in the May 1971 issue. That particular article examined a variety of wordplay based on the letters in the name CAROLINE. While that article preceded the appearance of my second daughter by over thirteen years, there has until now been no article related to either forename of my first daughter. As I am beginning to find that each daughter wants what the other has, I felt it was …


Vowel Structure, Dana Richards Aug 1987

Vowel Structure, Dana Richards

Word Ways

The vowel structure of a word is defined as its sequence of vowels, such as OIOU in obvious and conscious, or AE in pattern and amend. The only previous Word Ways studies of vowel structure focused upon finding as many of the 120 permutations of AEIOU as possible (see "Unsociable Housemaid Discourages Facetious Behavior" in November 1968, an "An AEIOUS Examination" in May (1979). In contrast, this article tackles the problems of (1) finding examples of all 216 types of vowel structure for words having three vowels among AEIOUY, and (2) finding examples of all 625 types of vowel structure …


Grandma Clancy's Cootherman Box, Timothy G. Clancy Aug 1987

Grandma Clancy's Cootherman Box, Timothy G. Clancy

Word Ways

As a child I was often fascinated by a small wooden box in which my grandmother kept her costume jewelry. She referred to it as her Cootherman box. It was not until recently that I decided to investigate the possible origin and meaning behind the word cootherman in an effort to understand its significance in relation to that mysterious box of jewelry.


Kophobelemnonidae, Jeff Grant Aug 1987

Kophobelemnonidae, Jeff Grant

Word Ways

Although not always essential to Scrabblers, one of the main functions of a dictionary is to provide its user with a clear definition of the terms it contains. For example, if we look up MIDDLE-AGED in Chambers we find 'between youth and old age, variously reckoned to suit the reckoner'. Fair enough! The ultimate in concision was reached by Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, which defined in early printings the word RAFTMAN as 'a raftman'. No argument there.


Author! Author! Author!, Richard Lederer Aug 1987

Author! Author! Author!, Richard Lederer

Word Ways

Once upon a time we had presidents named John Quincy Adams, William Henry Harrison, William Howard Taft, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Also in the world of politics were the likes of William Lloyd Garrison, William Jennings Bryan, and Margaret Chase Smith.


N-Ciphered Texts, Donald E. Knuth Aug 1987

N-Ciphered Texts, Donald E. Knuth

Word Ways

Some years ago, while doing research on typography, I made a special font of type that obscured the letters in order to study the effect of spacing. Some of my students happened to look at one of my examples, and decided on their own initiative to look at one of my other examples, and decided on their own initiative to figure out the words that I thought had been obliterated. To my great surprise, they were not only able to reconstruct a highly complicated and abstruse text, but enjoyed every minute of the task! They were so hooked on the …


Reaganagram Reprise, John Henrick Aug 1987

Reaganagram Reprise, John Henrick

Word Ways

As the curtain rises on the denouement of the Reagan years, it seems appropriate to renew the search for apposite transposals of the President's name. In the May 1984 issue of Word Ways, the term Reaganagram was introduced by Mike Morton and A. Ross Eckler in reference to interesting permutations of the eighteen letter in RONALD WILSON REAGAN, or alphabetically arranged, AAADEGILLNNNOORRSW. To the hundreds of examples of computer-generated scramblings contained in their article, the human touch was added in the August 1984 issue through various contributions from readers.


Brit Wit: A Slang Quiz, Leonard R. N. Ashley Aug 1987

Brit Wit: A Slang Quiz, Leonard R. N. Ashley

Word Ways

The wit and wisdom of the common people are preserved in slang words and phrases which can sometimes be a little baffling or require insider knowledge, as when a Cockney says, "I wouldn't like to be a pawnbroker's sign on a night like this." (A really cold night can "freeze the balls off a brass monkey," and a pawnbroker's sign has, of course, not two but three balls.) Less crude and less complicated, but as amusing perhaps, are the following words and expressions from British slang. How many can you decipher? The best of British luck to you!


Kickshaws, Edward R. Wolpow Aug 1987

Kickshaws, Edward R. Wolpow

Word Ways

A collection of linguistic kickshaws.


I Hear America Talking: Now Slang, Leonard R. N. Ashley Aug 1987

I Hear America Talking: Now Slang, Leonard R. N. Ashley

Word Ways

Now that it's baseball season, I think I'll bat out a slang quiz for you to bat around. I hope these vivid new American slang terms won't drive you batty. OK, you're at bat - if you bat one thousand, you are listening to America talking a very "now" language, and you get around among college students, druggies, truckers, cons, astronauts, and the like.


Ghostbusters, Alan Frank Aug 1987

Ghostbusters, Alan Frank

Word Ways

In "Our Move" in the November 1971 Word Ways, Darryl Francis demonstrated that the only safe opening move for the first player in the game of Ghost (players alternately add letters, and the one that first completes a word of four or more letters is the loser) is the letter L. He allowed only uncapitalized words from Webster's Third Edition to be used; specifically, he excluded all words labeled cap, usu cap, often cap, or sometimes cap. In the article, he invited Word Ways readers to determine the corresponding strategies for other dictionaries.


Back Cover Aug 1987

Back Cover

Word Ways

Back cover of this issue including instructions to authors.


Mama, Me Shemighvinianebia, Harry B. Partridge Aug 1987

Mama, Me Shemighvinianebia, Harry B. Partridge

Word Ways

"Wombat, Wombat, Wombat!" muttered I, handing the list back to the amiable beast in question.


Escaped From The Language-Lab, Rudy Kousbroeck Aug 1987

Escaped From The Language-Lab, Rudy Kousbroeck

Word Ways

There once was a poor woodchopper. This woodchopping, he said one day to his woman, there sits no dry bread in it [it does not pay]. I work myself an accident [extremely hard] the whole day, but you and our twelve children have not to eat.


Four From Four Isn't Zero, John Henrick Aug 1987

Four From Four Isn't Zero, John Henrick

Word Ways

The title applies to the following tetrad of poems, written entirely in four-letter words. In these pages in November 1986, I reported on the results of a prior experiment which I had conducted to test the literal sense of a Cole Porter lyric which claimed that contemporary authors now only use four-letter words in their writings. Prose presented definite difficulties, but verse appeared to be moderately tractable.


Transposing Rates, Jeff Grant Aug 1987

Transposing Rates, Jeff Grant

Word Ways

A set of three different letters can be transposed in six ways. There are a number of these groups where all possible combinations are legitimate terms; for example the letters AER yield the following six words, all of which are listed in Web 2.


Do Mamaroneckers Like To Neck?, Mary Stewart Craig Aug 1987

Do Mamaroneckers Like To Neck?, Mary Stewart Craig

Word Ways

People with uninhibited imaginations often wonder about things that wouldn't cross saner minds. Do lobsters hurt when you boil them? Why is a lieutenant general higher in rank than a major general when a major outranks a lieutenant? What do you call people who speak Flemish besides Belgians? Until I found out they're plain old Flemings (how mundane!), I had dreamed up names with much more oomph. Why, they could be Flems, Flams, or Flooms!


Cross Of Understanding, Walter Shedlofsky Aug 1987

Cross Of Understanding, Walter Shedlofsky

Word Ways

"Good afternoon. Father Patrick MacReady, I presume. I am Police Lieutenant Arthur Jamison."


Mnemonics For Overlapping Groups, A. Ross Eckler Aug 1987

Mnemonics For Overlapping Groups, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Most mnemonics are constructed to aid in recalling the members of a single group, such as ROY G BIV for the colors of the spectrum, or Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Protest for the Seattle east-west streets Jefferson, James, Cherry, Columbia, Marion, Madison, Spring, Seneca, University, Union, Pike and Pine.


Gap, David Morice Aug 1987

Gap, David Morice

Word Ways

The names for numbers are perhaps the oldest words in our vocabulary. They are so old that the reasons for their use have been lost. There is an attempt to relate three to beyond through the prefixes tri- and trans-. There is also an attempt to relate five to hand, more apparent in the Polynesian languages than in the Indo-European.


Answers And Solutions Aug 1987

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to the puzzles in this issue.


Word-Unit Palindromes, A. Ross Eckler Aug 1987

Word-Unit Palindromes, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

A word-unit palindrome is a sentence (or sequence of sentences) which, word for word, reads the same in forward and reverse.


Dial N For Negative, Don Sharp Aug 1987

Dial N For Negative, Don Sharp

Word Ways

The negative English morphene, un- and its equivalents, was not born naturally; it was invented, like all languages, out of the need to easily reverse word meanings from positive to negative. There is no question as to the early need for the negative, as shown by the Sanskrit an-. In dozens of words since, the un- has proved its utility many times over; for sure, the un- is in.


Back Cover Aug 1987

Back Cover

Word Ways

Back cover of this issue including instructions to authors.


Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 20 Number 3 Aug 1987

Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 20 Number 3

Word Ways

Front cover and publication information for this issue.


Two New Books On Scrabble, Alan Frank Aug 1987

Two New Books On Scrabble, Alan Frank

Word Ways

The John G. White Chess Library in Cleveland has about one hundred thousand volumes. Victor Mollo has had about two dozen books published on bridge. But the number of titles available on Scrabble [registered trademark] can be counted on the titles of one rack, and until a year ago, none of them was based on the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary.


Insertion-Deletion Networks, A. Ross Eckler Aug 1987

Insertion-Deletion Networks, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Word networks - collections of words of a common length that can be joined by single-letter substitutions, such as the sequence BANKER-BANTER-BATTER-BETTER-SETTER-SETTEE-SETTLE linking BANKER and SETTLE - were studied in some detail in the May and August 1973 issues of Word Ways. Non-repeating sequences from word networks, commonly called word ladders and doublets, have a long history; Lewis Carroll, among others, challenged readers to join two specified words by a ladder. However, word networks have one serious flaw: they do not allow one to incorporate words of different lengths. This can be rectified by the concept of an insertion-deletion …