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Olympic Observations, Darryl Francis Aug 1976

Olympic Observations, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

With the staging of the 1976 Olympic Games, we felt that it would be fitting for the word-lover to investigate the Olympic phenomenon.

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Another Interlaced Charade, R. Robinson Rowe Aug 1976

Another Interlaced Charade, R. Robinson Rowe

Word Ways

I am often intrigued by words within words. Recently, I came across one of 15 letters which can be divided into 5 very common shorter words as indicated: xxxxxx-xx-x-xxx-xxx. Delving deeper, I found it held many more such words -- some forwards nad some backwards. This suggested dissecting it into all of its many parts, hinting at their identifications, and offering it as a bit of recreation for readers to synthesize the parts back to the whole. For that purpose, the 15 letters are numbered in order.

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Hard-To-Find Words In Web 3 (N-P), Ralph G. Beaman Aug 1976

Hard-To-Find Words In Web 3 (N-P), Ralph G. Beaman

Word Ways

A list of hard-to-find words.

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Instructions To Authors Aug 1976

Instructions To Authors

Word Ways

Instructions to authors wishing to contribute to the publication.

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Gird Yourself For Word Girders, Tom Pulliam Aug 1976

Gird Yourself For Word Girders, Tom Pulliam

Word Ways

Many of the articles in Word Ways were inspired by Dmitri Borgmann's Language on Vacation (Scribner's, 1965); this comprehensive volume of wordplay has stimulated almost every conceivable type of word surgery and dissection by faithful logophiles. One might, in fact, presume that the challenges mothered by this book have been well-nigh exhausted. Not so! On page 159, Dmitri introduced the concept of word girders: two words that are converted to two entirely different words by interchanging every second letter between the words. The following three five-letter examples given in his book should make the transformation perfectly clear.

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The Last Word Aug 1976

The Last Word

Word Ways

Recently, Philip Cohen suggested that Word Ways needs a column to clarify editorial policy and to provide background comment on articles published in the issue. I'm not sure that there is enough need for information for this sort to justify a page every month -- but let's give it a try.

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President Smith, Where Are You?, A. Ross Eckler Aug 1976

President Smith, Where Are You?, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

"Hey, Dad," said my daughter, Louis, "why hasn't there been a President Smith? Isn't Smith the commonest surname in the country?"

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Back Cover Aug 1976

Back Cover

Word Ways

Back cover of this issue.

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An Olympic Quiz, Darryl Francis Aug 1976

An Olympic Quiz, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

Because of the growing worldwide interest in the 1976 Olympic Games, held in Montreal, Canada, we felt it might be an appropriate time to devise an Olympic quiz. Actually, what we have devised is not so much a quiz as a word game. During the past months, we have noticed that the letters of the word olympic can be added to the letters of many other words, and transposed to make a new word. For example, if OLYMPIC is added to GALA, you end up with the scientific term POLYGAMICAL.

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Front Cover, Publication Information May 1976

Front Cover, Publication Information

Word Ways

Front Cover, Publication Information, Table of Contents

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A Man For All Seasons, Betsy Burr May 1976

A Man For All Seasons, Betsy Burr

Word Ways

Recently I was showing my daughter Jessica some of the old word-and-number rebuses of my childhood, such as the one given on the right. When I ran out, she begged for more, so I went to the library, where by a lucky chance I happened to find the following passage in an old copy of Caesar's Commentaries, his account of his military exploits in Gaul.

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Oulipo, Harry Mathews May 1976

Oulipo, Harry Mathews

Word Ways

The name OuLiPo has already appeared in Word Ways in connection with "L'Egal Franglais," a bilingual vocabulary written for the group which bear that name.

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Must You Join The Queue?, A. Ross Eckler May 1976

Must You Join The Queue?, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

One of the most enduring pieces of orthographic folklore is the assertion that the letter Q in a word is always followed by the letter U. The staunchest defenders of this rule are unruffled by the counterexample Iraq, for this is a foreign proper name and not a genuine English word; similarly, they quickly dismiss Qantas (an Australian airline) and Qiana (a synthetic fabric) as tradenames designed to attract notice.

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Pure Consonant Tetragrams, Maxey Brooke May 1976

Pure Consonant Tetragrams, Maxey Brooke

Word Ways

When asked why he composed his dictionary of trigrams, Ross Eckler replied that it might be useful for crossword puzzle addicts or scrabble fans. Mostly, I think, he did it just for fun. Anyway, that's the only excuse I give for this assemblage of all-consonant tetragrams.

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6-By-6 Double Word Squares, M. D. Mcilroy May 1976

6-By-6 Double Word Squares, M. D. Mcilroy

Word Ways

The November 1975 issue of Word Ways presented a set of 52 7-by-7 word squares that were generated by computer from a list of boldface words from Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (Seventh Edition) plus the appendices of boys' and girls' names. This article reports on the results of a similar computer search for 6-by-6 double word squares.

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Answers And Solutions May 1976

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to the puzzles contained in this issue.

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Shakespeare's Lost Palindrome, James Fanning May 1976

Shakespeare's Lost Palindrome, James Fanning

Word Ways

In the summer of 1973, Miss O. P. Helier, a Yorkshire antiquarian, spent a few happy days rummaging through antiques shops in London. Among the items she unearthed was a small metal box with a label that read: "Ashes from ye gret London fyre, 1666". She bought the box for a few shillings and took it, unopened, home with her. Several months later, Miss Helier opened the box, expecting to nothing more than some bits of charcoal, and was amazed to find a heap of charred paper, evidently pages from a book. The largest of these fragments was no bigger …

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An Old Reference, Ramona J. Quincunx May 1976

An Old Reference, Ramona J. Quincunx

Word Ways

The year 1876 marked the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It was also noted for a logological event of considerable interest, which has languished in obscurity all too long: the publication in London of William R. Cooper's landmark work, An Archaic Dictionary, from the Egyptian, Assyrian, and Etruscan Monuments and Papyri.

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Stately Words, Darryl Francis May 1976

Stately Words, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

In the February 1976 Kickshaws, Ralph Beaman wondered about the possibility of Websterian words made up from the two-letter postal abbreviations for the 50 states. For example, ORDEAL is composed of OR (Oregon, DE (Delaware), and AL (Alabama). This article attempts to list all the stately words in Webster's Pocket Dictionary, extending the results to Webster's Second and Third Editions for longer examples.

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Colloquy May 1976

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.

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The Homoliteral Raven, A. Ross Eckler May 1976

The Homoliteral Raven, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

A modification of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven."

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American Transpositions, Darryl Francis May 1976

American Transpositions, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

One particular class of linguistic oddity which has frequently appeared in the pages of Word Ways is the transposition. Hardly an issue of the magazine goes by without a clutch of transpositions being offered to the readership. The very first issue (February, 1968) contained transpositions of the names of some of the chemical elements; subsequent issues have contained transpositions of country names, anatomical terms, animal names, color names, mathematical terms and the names of the fifty states. In this article, we would like to present and discuss some transpositions deriving from the name AMERICA.

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The One-Letter Rebus, Philip M. Cohen May 1976

The One-Letter Rebus, Philip M. Cohen

Word Ways

A rebus is a letter or letter-group that is described by a word or phrase, introducing new spacing as appropriate, such as B = abalone ("a B alone"). In the May 1973 Kickshaws, David Silverman gave two lists of single-letter rebi taken from the Enigma, the monthly publication of the National Puzzlers' League, and asked for improvements. Rather than try to invent new ones, as did Ernst Theimer in the August 1973 Kickshaws, I will simply give my own list from the Enigma; being more inclusive, it should have something to satisfy every rebic taste.

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Instructions To Authors May 1976

Instructions To Authors

Word Ways

Instructions to authors wishing to contribute to the publication.

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Synonymic Deletions, Tom Pulliam May 1976

Synonymic Deletions, Tom Pulliam

Word Ways

Each sect, cult or specialized denomination has a Scripture from which its adherents draw inspiration. For logophiles, there's little doubt that it has long been, and continues to be, Dmitri Borgmann's Language on Vacation (Scribner's, 1965). Scanning past issues of Word Ways, one quickly becomes aware that many of its articles extend concepts earlier described in this book.

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Dutch Treat, George J. Levenbach May 1976

Dutch Treat, George J. Levenbach

Word Ways

In the February 1976 Word Ways, Harry Mathews listed more than 250 French words which looked like English words but in reality had entirely different meanings. Here is an analogous list of Dutch words in English dress.

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Hard-To-Find Words In Web 3 (K-N), Ralph G. Beaman May 1976

Hard-To-Find Words In Web 3 (K-N), Ralph G. Beaman

Word Ways

A list of words that are hard to find.

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The Esthetics Of Synonymy, Dmitri A. Borgmann May 1976

The Esthetics Of Synonymy, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

If our language were ideal, it would exhibit a one-to-one correspondence between thought and word. For each possible thought, there would be one (but no more than one) matching word.

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Kickshaws, Faith W. Eckler May 1976

Kickshaws, Faith W. Eckler

Word Ways

Kickshaws is being assembled by a series of guest editors during Dave Silverman's sabbatical in 1976. During this year, all contributions and comments should be sent to the editor in Morristown, N.J.

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More Well-Endowed Chairs, Frank Oberlander, Mary Oberlander May 1976

More Well-Endowed Chairs, Frank Oberlander, Mary Oberlander

Word Ways

In the February 1976 issue of Word Ways, Philip Cohen presented a collection of aptly-endowed college chairs. We invite him to attend the spring convocation of Ourtown Vocational Junior College to learn of some truly remarkable affinities between the donors and the chairs that they have endowed.

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