Digital Commons Network^™

The Assault On Logology, Mejnour Zanoni

Word Ways

A recent word ways article by Philip M. Cohen (May, 1980) enunciates a new logological concept. For a word or name to be regarded as "interesting" it must have some property unique within the group to which it belongs. The article illustrates the concept by applying it to a well-known group of names: that of the 50 states of the United States.

The Abc Of Place-Names, Leonard R. N. Ashley

Word Ways

Here are words (all beginning with A, B or C to make things a bit easier) which have been derived from place-names around the world. We give you the definition, along with a hint concerning the place; you provide the word and the place-name from which it is derived. Answers will be found in Answers and Solutions at the end of this issue.

Onomasticon V, Edward R. Wolpow

Word Ways

Following the lead of George Scheetz in compiling lists of words with a common ending, I have chosen words ending in -IFER, the majority of which derive from the suffix meaning 'to bear' or 'to carry'. Numbers of words ending in -IFERA and -IFEROUS have no sanctioned curtailments to -IFER, even though such words would be logical derivations. Except as noted, all words are in the Merriam-Webster unabridged dictionary.

Biblical Colors, Faith W. Eckler

Word Ways

In "Touch Blue", Maxey Brooke is not quite fair to the writers of the Bible by attributing to them a measure of color-blindness for never mentioning that the sky is blue. To begin with, he asserts that the sky is mentioned more than 400 times in the Bible when in fact the word "sky" or "skies" appears only eleven times. More common (and undoubtedly what he had in mind) is "heaven". However, this word in its Biblical usage usually connotes a realm -- the abode of God or of the souls of the faithful departed -- rather than a canopy …

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to the puzzles contained in this issue.

Twenty Stately Riddles, Boris Randolph

Word Ways

A collection of riddles about states. Answers are in the Answers and Solutions of this issue.

Dictionary Sounds, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

The onomatopoeic comic-book words exhibited by John McClellan in the August 1980 Word Ways are undeniably outlandish. However, it is worth noting the fact (dictionary words) can be just as odd as fiction (comic-book coinages). To prove my point, I have selected fifty words from the English Dictionary (two for each letter except X), all having something to do with interjections, cries, moaning, mumbling and so on. To me, the words on this list seem even stranger than many of the ones McClellan cites.

Kickshaws, Willard R. Espy

Word Ways

A collection of linguistic kickshaws assembled by a guest editor.

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 up to a month prior to publication of an issue will appear in that issue.

Crosswords And The Computer, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

There is little question that the crossword is the most popular type of word puzzle in both England and America. Thousands are solved every year in newspapers and magazines by people who are unaware that the field of recreational linguistics stretches far beyond these limits. The cognitive processes that people use to solve word puzzles are of interest to both psychologists and computer programmers: what is human problem-solving behavior? can it be imitated by a computer? It is obvious that a computer is much faster and more accurate than a human being in repetitive arithmetic calculations or in list-sorting. However, …

Is A Picture Worth 1000 Words?, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Recently, Boris Randolph of Los Angeles proposed the following:

"The exact number of words that a PICTURE is worth can be found by forming all the possible words that can be made from the word PICTURE, using them only as often as they occur in PICTURE itself (namely once) ..."

and provided a list of 126 words from Webster's Third. Intrigued, I checked Webster's Second, the OED and the Times Atlas of the World for more, generating the following list of 273 words of two letters or more.

Dictionary Eodermdromes, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Place the different letters of a word on a sheet of paper, and, without lifting pencil from paper, trace out a path linking on e letter to another, spelling out the word. Such a path may have loops emanating from a letter and returning to it (if the word has a doubled letter), or may have more than one link joining a pair of different letters (if a bigram appears in the word, and the same bigram or its reversal appears elsewhere in the word). This pattern of letters and links is called a spelling net; it can take …

Front Cover And Publication Information

Word Ways

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

The Cystine Chapel, Edward R. Wolpow

Word Ways

According to Webster's Third New International Dictionary, the words SISTINE, CYSTINE and CYSTEINE are pronounced in the same way -- a homonymic fact which overtaxes my imagination. The latter two are sulfur-containing amino acids, and ambiguity in spoken English is so real that the preferred dictionary pronunciations are seldom used: CYSTEINE most often becomes a three-syllable word, /sis tay een/, accented on the second syllable so the hearer knows with certainty what the speaker means. In the same fashion, HOMOCYSTEINE and HOMOCYSTINE are in practice pronounced differently, although dictionary preference is for homonymy, rhyming with SISTINE. Note also BENZENE and …

Ensnaring The Elusive Eodermdrome, Gary S. Bloom, John W. Kennedy, Peter J. Wexler

Word Ways

We wish to introduce the recreational aspects of the eodermdrome, which is a recently formulated concept dealing with the structure of language units such as letters and words. Although this concept may eventually lead to a numerical way to compare the structural differences between languages and to trace structural development in a single language, the majority of individuals who learn about eodermdromes evince less interest in their potential scholarly ramifications than in the delightful task of creating them.

Venerable Venery, Richard E. Douglass

Word Ways

If you thumb through your standard deskside dictionary, you may be shocked to learn that venery is a euphemistic term describing coital commerce.

To stem any blazing tide of flaming pens charging us with smut, sensationalism, prurience and suchlike, let us assure you that our topic concerns another -- wholly respectable -- interpretation of the word.

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 up to a month prior to publication of an issue will appear in that issue.

Onomasticon Iv, George H. Scheetz

Word Ways

'Wright' is a word whose earliest recorded use was, according to the OED, circa 695 A.D. The word is now considered archaic or dialectic, but in its 1300-year history 'wright' has spawned many attributed and combined words and surnames, the subject of this listing. All words are from Webster's Second, the OED, or S. Baring-Gould's Family Names and Their Story. Words which double as surnames are indicated by an asterisk and are either recorded in Baring-Gould or known to the author; if a reader knows someone whose surname is in this list, but not noted as such, please send …

Quatrain, Maxey Brooke

Word Ways

I burn my matches at both ends,
They're kinda hard to handle.
But ah, my friends, and oh, my foes,
I can't afford a candle. (Anon.)

That is a verse of poetry -- right?

Wrong -- it is a stanza, a stave, or even a strophe, but not a verse.

Kickshaws, Howard W. Bergerson

Word Ways

A collection of linguistic kickshaws.

Once More: What Is A Word?, Dana Richards

Word Ways

In recent issues of Word Ways, Dmitri Borgmann and Richard Lederer struggled with the age-old linguistic question "What is a word?" without coming to any very satisfactory conclusions. In fact, both authors convinced me what a word is not: a collection of letters strung together (with or without spaces), or simply a collection of morphemes. This note attempts to shed a little further light on the problem.

Comic Book Coinages, John Mcclellan

Word Ways

My wife and I were on a plane high over the Atlantic en route to England. We occupied aisle seats, and next to us was a young English lad, obviously returning home with his parents (in the row behind us) after a visit to the United States. On the boy's lap was a comic book -- I've forgotten the title -- and an English dictionary was at his side. A Latin dictionary lay on the floor. He had a puzzled expression on his face and it seemed as though he might be close to tears for his chin trembled ever …

Clippity Clop, Richard Lederer

Word Ways

Maxey Brooke's concise and informative disquisition on clipping in the May issue of Word Ways inspires further exploration of this pervasive and versatile method of word-formation.

Dctnr Wrds Wtht Vwls, Jeff Grant, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

Despite the promise of the title, this article is not concerned with the intelligibility of dictionary words without vowels (that is, with the letters AEIOUY removed), but instead with that tiny group of words which contain no vowels at all. For the sake of completeness, we include a considerably larger group of words which appear vowelless, but in reality are not -- words which use the letters V or W to represent vowel sounds. On the other hand, we do not include two burgeoning classes of vowelless words quite familiar to the average reader -- abbreviations such as MR., MRS., …

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to the puzzles contained in this issue.

A Myth Good For A Mile, Leonard R. N. Ashley

Word Ways

The American poet Hart Crane sang of "the great Bridge, our Myth," but it is another kind of myth that bridges the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome and our own. See how many common English words you can identify that are derived from Greek myth in the quiz below. Answers can be found in Answers and Solutions at the end of this issue.

Back Cover

Word Ways

Back cover of this issue, including instructions to authors.

Circular Alphabets, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

In Language on Vacation, Dmitri Bormann exhibited several words having their letters arranged in alphabetical order (for example, ADELOPS, BILLOWY and AEGILOPS) and also in reverse alphabetical order (for example, ZYXOMMA, SPOON-FEED and SPOON-FED).

However, suppose now that the alphabet is written in a circular fashion, with the letters A to Z written in a clockwise manner, so that the Z ends up next to the A. Two questions immediately arise: (1) reading clockwise, what is the longest word that can be spelled out within one "revolution" of the alphabet? (2) similarly, what is the longest word that can …

Robert H. Billigmeier, A Crisis In Swiss Pluralism, Leo Schelbert

Swiss American Historical Society Newsletter

The author, Professor of Sociology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, presents a study that is clearly a labor of love, an analytical tour de force, and a toughminded professional diagnosis. It is devoted to the Swiss segment of the once large community of Romansh speakers who resided in the Alpine regions between Italy and Northern Europe. The remnant occupies today a similar position as the Basques in Spain and France, the Flemish in Belgium, or the Lapps in the northern borderlands who are also encircled by more numerous and powerful linguistic groups. Professor Billigmeier views the Romansh, …

French Slang In Literal Translation, Leonard R. N. Ashley

Word Ways

I hate to agrafer (buttonhole) you with some problems which are not du sucre (duck soup), but here are some French slang phrases translated literally into English. Your problem is to deduce the English equivalent of the meaning conveyed to a Frenchman by the slang expression.