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Kickshaws, Howard W. Bergerson

Word Ways

A collection of linguistic kickshaws.

Are Acrostic Messages Real?, A, Ross Eckler

Word Ways

One of the commonest ways to "prove" that an author is engaging in wordplay is to search for odd patterns of letters in his writings.

Instructions To Authors

Word Ways

Instructions for submitting articles.

Writers' Link-O-Grams, Paul Hellweg

Word Ways

In the February 1980 issue of Word Ways, Boris Randolph presented an article entitled "Biographical Link-O-Grams", in which common words were found that linked the first and last names of famous persons. Since writers are associated with words, it seems appropriate to consider Link-O-Grams based solely on the names of famous authors.

Onomastics-Cha-Cha-Cha, Leonard R. N. Ashley

Word Ways

Did you ever swim or stroll or frug or jerk or make like a fish or a mashed potato? Do you know that people used to turkey trot and black bottom and even waltz? The onomastics of dance hold a few linguistic surprises, so here is a two-step quiz (1:questions, 2:answers) on the names of popular dances of different times and places.

Bowdlerized Alphabet Soup, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

The socially most significant article in the May 1985 Word Ways is one by Dan Laycock, discussing the obscene properties of alphabet soup. Since this food is frequently consumed by young children, it is of the utmost importance to avoid corrupting their impressionable minds by the accidental formation of off-color words. As a public service to soup purveyors, I offer the following nine solutions to this vexing problem:

Renaming The Months, A, Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Most people are familiar with the dictum that one should only eat oysters in months containing the letter R, even though refrigeration has made this caution unnecessary. The letter R is contained in eight consecutive months, September through April, but absent from the remainder, May through August.

Jack And The Twoderful Beans, Richard Lederer

Word Ways

Many years ago, the comedian and pianist Victor Borge invented the idea of inflationary language. Since prices keep going up, Borge reasoned, why shouldn't language go up, too? In the English langage there are words that contain the sounds of numbers, like wonder, before and decorate. If we inflate each sound by one, we come up with twoder, befive, and decornine. Here is an original passage that will allow you to read and hear inflationary language in all its inflated grandeur. Try your eye and ear at translating this text back into regular English.

Last Man Circuit: Circumstantial, Walter Shedlofsky

Word Ways

In case of my death, please deliver to Police. Leonard Fromken

More Sound-Spelling Correspondences, Mark Isaak

Word Ways

This article is a sequel to "Sound-Spelling Correspondences" in the May 1985 Word Ways, providing additional spellings for the indicated pronunciations. All have been taken from Webster's Third Edition.

Colloquy

Word Ways

Responses to previously published articles

One More Charade Crossword, Ernst Theimer

Word Ways

Of all crossword puzzles, I find the charade crossword the most enjoyable. in this type of crossword, the clues do not directly define the word to be found. The word is buried as a charade in a sentence.

Front Cover And Publication Information, Volume 18 Number 2

Word Ways

Front cover and publication information, including a table of contents, for this issue.

Wordplay In Ancient Greece, Dana Richards

Word Ways

The Greek Anthology is a collection of Greek poetry compiled by Constantine Cephalas during the 10th century, known today from the only extant copy in the Palatine Library at Heidelberg. David Singmaster recently discovered that this work contains hundreds of mathematical puzzles. his 1984 article on this topic in the Mathematical Spectrum gives an excellent overview of these; however, they are rarely challenging and often repetitive.

Clothes Encounters, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Names of businesses, especially small Mom-and-Pop ones, are a fertile source of wordplay. This is especially evident in beauty parlor and barbershop nomenclature, extensively documented in "Hair-It-Is" in the May 1979 Word Ways. This article is a sequel, concentrating on women's and men's clothing stores, including such specialties as maternity and bridal shops, but excluding shoes (more often dominated by large chains). The names in both articles are an impressive testimony to the inventiveness of the human mind.

Plaudere, Du Alp!, Herbert Pfeiffer

Word Ways

Herbert Pfeiffer is the only currently-active palindromist in West Germany. The following, first published in Neue Texte (an Austrian journal for poetry) in 1983, is believed to be the longest German palindrome ever written. Readers familiar with long English-language palindromes know that they make local sense but shift subject in erratic and unpredictable ways; so it is with "Talk, Nightmare!". The literal translation utterly destroys the spirit of the German original, becoming mere gibberish. I have attempted a free translation of the beginning and end which, I think, conveys the author's desolate message if not his exact words.

Shakespearean Word (514) Ways (82), Edward R. Wolpow

Word Ways

In 1969, The Bard met The Computer, resulting in The Harvard Concordance to Shakespeare by marvin Spevack, a 1600-page book with very large pages and very small type, cataloguing the 884,647 words of Will's written corpus, from A to ZWAGGER'D. Excepting the 43 most frequently used words (THE, AND, I, etc.), every single use of every single word is listed, with the line or context in which it appears. The number of times each word is used is also tabulated. I do not doubt this revolutionized the study of Shakespeare, but I am not aware of a logological appreciation.

Kickshaws, Eric Albert

Word Ways

A collection of linguistic kickshaws.

Colloquy

Word Ways

Responses to previously published articles.

A Rude Word In The Alphabet Soup, Don Laycock

Word Ways

Horace Greerly looked at his spoon first in amazement, then in a mixture of disbelief and horror.

"Martha," he said finally. "There's a rude word in my alphabet soup."

Formal Analogy Is Best, John Henrick

Word Ways

Like graffiti and proverbs, bumper sticker slogans invite compilation and classification. The taxonomist thus occupied soon concludes that occasional specimens appear sui generis. more careful thought, however, leads to the realization that in certain cases, at least, the peculiar instance provides the template for a genre.

Oxonian Wordplay, David Shulman

Word Ways

The Oxford University Press, publisher of the prestigious Oxford English Dictionary and its current Supplement, issued in 1984 The Oxford Guide to Word Games by Tony Augarde, a member of their dictionary staff. This 250-page book is a fascinating guide to all sorts of wordplay and word games, their origins, rules and variations. Included are acrostics, crosswords, rebuses, anagrams, tongue-twisters, and popular games such as Scrabble. However, since the author is a lexicographer rather than a logologist, the reader will search in vain for original material; Augarde has merely repeated whatever he encountered in his bibliography. Alas, this is skimpy; …

Dutch Crow-Eggs (Kraaieeieren), George J. Levenbach

Word Ways

This article is a translation of material appearing on pages 108. 110 and 113 of Opperlandse Taal- & Letterkunde, the Dutch book of wordplay reviewed in teh February 1985 Word Ways. One of the outstanding features of Dutch is its ability to form words with large numbers of consecutive vowels; here this ability is stretched to the limit.

Sound-Spelling Correspondences, Mark Isaak

Word Ways

The introduction to the American Heritage Dictionary contains a list showing the variety of spellings which give particular sounds. Although it gives most of the common spellings, it omits many others. This list is an attempt to fill in the gaps.

A Fascinating Index (Non-Papal Kind), Louis Phillips

Word Ways

The following piece of found humor is taken from the index to Fred Allen's Much Ado About Me. Can anyone conceive of a stranger collection of topics?

Dipthongs, Maxey Brooke

Word Ways

A vowel, by definition, is a sound produced by the vibrations of the vocal cords without the friction or stoppage which characterizes consonants. The alphabetical vowels are A, E, I, O, and U, comprising about 40 percent of the letters in all written words. Actually, A and I are dipthongs; one vowel sound immediately followed by another I is pronounced ah-ee.

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to the puzzles contained in this issue.

Back Cover

Word Ways

Back cover of the issue, including instructions to authors.

A Logo-Trivia Quiz, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

It had to happen. The recent trivia craze sweeping the nation has finally invaded the sacred precincts of logology. here, then, is the first full-fledged logolgoical trivial quiz. It happens to be one placing the beginner on a par with the expert: so far as I know, none of the items included have previously appeared in Word Ways, my books, or anywhere else. Have fun!

Fragging The Froggies, Leonard R. N. Ashley

Word Ways

What's wrong with pay TV, jet, jingle, discount and such words? Plenty, says the French government. They represent the invasion of pure French by Franglais, as do long-established words from English such as smoking and weekend. M. Mitterand's government now wants to fine Frenchmen the equivalent of seven dollars each time one of these words is used; it has legally banned some 126 of them in all. Sacre bleu! Howard Smith suggests we retaliate by weeding out of English such French words as lassez-faire and café and such expressions as c'est la vie ("tough titty"). He would replace raconteur …