British Word Puzzles (1800-1850), William F. Shortz

Word Ways

By the late 1700s and early 1800s, many new types of word puzzles had become popular in England. Charades began to rival enigmas and riddles in prevalence, and anagrams, transpositions, reversals, beheadments, and logogriphs all began to appear with greater and greater frequency.

Good Grief!, Merlin X. Houdini Iv

Word Ways

Greetings from glamorous Guam!
With a truly miraculous sense of detachment and aloofness possible only from the vantage point of this Pacific island paradise, I have been viewing the series of articles appearing in Word Ways under the name of "An Onomastic Study".

Instructions To Authors

Word Ways

Instructions to authors wishing to contribute to the publication.

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to the puzzles contained in this issue.

The Wordplay Of James Thurber, A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

James Thurber has always been a hard man to pin down. At the time of Thurber's death in 1961, E. B. White wrote in the New York Times that "there were at least two, probably six Thurbers ... His thoughts have always been a tangle of baseball scores, Civil War tactical problems, Henry James, personal maladjustments, terrier puppies, literary rip tides, ancient myths, and modern apprehensions ... Through this jungle stalk the unpredictable ghosts of his relatives in Columbus, Ohio."

Kickshaws, David L. Silverman

Word Ways

Readers are encouraged to send their own favorite linguistic kickshaws to the Associate Editor. All answers appear in the Answers and Solutions at the end of this issue.

Christmas, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

At this time of year, the thoughts of most people, voluntarily or otherwise, turn towards Christmas and the preparations for it. In all the flurry of pre-Christmas activity, though, many people tend to lose sight of the true meaning of Christmas.

An Onomastic Study (Part 3), Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

Resuming our survey of onomatological logology, we take up the transposition of city, town, and village names in the United States and its possessions. As in previous articles of this series, the country location and reference source are shown in parentheses, for the benefit of those readers who wish to check our discoveries.

An All-Vowel Crossword, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

In nearly all crosswords that appear in print, there is usually no relationship between the constituent words of the completed crossword diagram. To show that this need not be so, and to give you something to do for a couple of hours or so, we have devised a crossword where all the answer words are spelled using vowels -- the letters A, E, I, O, U and Y. Would you care to try and solve our crossword?

Front Cover, Publication Information

Word Ways

Front Cover, Publication Information, Table of Contents

Omak Me Yours Tonight, Willard R. Espy

Word Ways

In the May 1973 Kickshaws, Dave Silverman commented how much he enjoyed my Ballad of the Evergreen State (subtitled Ilwaco Million Miles for One of Your Smiles), the first ten verses of which were quoted in the May 6, 1972 Saturday Review. Subsequently, the editor wrote me asking permission to share the poem with Word Ways readers.

I Am Firm, You Are Obstinate, Aaron Martin Cohen

Word Ways

In the August 1969 Kickshaws, Dave Silverman briefly discusses the word game "Conjugating Irregular Verbs" (I am firm, you are obstinate, he is a pig-headed fool), and suggests a "Rich man, poor man" variant (rich man: tired; poor man: lazy). But such games can also be played in deadly earnest, particularly in religious and political confrontations.

Windmills, Walter Shedlofsky

Word Ways

For those logophiles who like to construct crossword puzzles, the Windmill can be an entertaining diversion. But, first, what is a Windmill? It is nothing more than two word squares on a cross.

A Flurry Of Phobias, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

Most of us are casually aware of the fact that people with a morbid fear of strangers or foreigners are suffering from XENOPHOBIA. Similarly, those with an abnormal aversion to large, open places are the victims of AGORAPHOBIA, while others who dread enclosed spaces are displaying CLAUSTROPHOBIA, and sitll others with an exaggerated fear of high places have contracted ACROPHOBIA.

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.

A 100-Letter Word Square, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

In the February 1973 issue of Word Ways, I posed the problem of constructing a tautonymic 10 x 10 word square consisting entirely of words and names taken from referenced works published since 1950: a modern, space-age word square.

Word Networks (Part 2), A. Ross Eckler

Word Ways

In the May 1973 issue of Word Ways, we presented the first part of a two-part article exploring the properties of word networks. A word network is formed out of words all having the same length; the words are joined by a link in the network if they differ only in one position, such as SHARE and SHORE, or BETTER and BATTER.

More Hidden Opposites, R. Robinson Rowe

Word Ways

In the February 1973 issue of Word Ways, Mary Youngquist challenged readers to find opposites (such as GIVE-TAKE) from transposed clues (such as KITE-GAVE). I found it easier to work on her list in reverse -- that is, think of a pair of opposites and then check to see if the transposed letters were present. In this quest, I inevitably came across a number of opposites that she did not use. Here is a fresh batch of fifty scrambled opposites for readers to try and solve. If you give up, the answers can be found in Answers and Solutions at …

Answers And Solutions

Word Ways

Answers and solutions to the puzzles contained in this issue.

Wordplay Or Swordplay?

Word Ways

This partial list of words that Inspector Lestrade brought around this morning from Boothwyn looks like pure gibberish to me, Holmes. It contains many words I've never heard of, there's no order to it, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. Let's throw it away and be off for the concert.

Instructions To Authors

Word Ways

Instructions to authors wishing to contribute to the publication.

An Onomastic Study (Part 2), Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

The first article in this series concerned itself with the shortest and the longest American place names. This article examines the same names in the search for such standard logological phenomena as tautonyms, palindromes, and reversals, using the same format and guidelines as did the first article. County or other specific location and number of reference work used (see bibliography at the end of this article) are generally given in parentheses.

British Word Puzzles (1700-1800), William F. Shortz

Word Ways

A rebirth of popularity in enigmas and word-play occurred in Europe during the Renaissance period. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, numerous collections of riddles and word puzzles were published, including Demaundes Joyous (1511), A Little Book of Riddles (1540), The Booke of Merry Riddles (prior to 1575; and mentioned in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor), Wit's Academy (1656), and many others. Men of all walks of life riddled and puzzled during idle hours.

Tall Words, Darryl Francis

Word Ways

In Language on Vacation (Scribner's, 1965), Dmitri Borgmann mentions a class of words called "narrow" words. Narrow words are those in which all letters are written without any extensions (lines, loops or dots) either above or below the line, both in handwriting and lower-case type. For example, Borgmann instances OVERNERVOUSNESSES and OVERNUMEROUSNESSES as two long narrow words.

Able, Baker, Charlie ..., Ernst T. Theimer

Word Ways

Much time has been spent on devising lists of the best words for transmitting initial letters unambiguously (A as in Able, B as n Baker, C as in Charlie ...). Even so, mistakes occur all too frequently. What then would be the confusion if one used instead the worst possible words from Webster's Second Unabridged Dictionary? This masochistic exercise, suggested by Henry Pollak of Bell Laboratories at Murray Hill, N. J., resulted in the compilation given below.

Kickshaws, David L. Silverman

Word Ways

Readers are encouraged to send their own favorite linguistic kickshaws to the Associate Editor. All answers appear in the Answers and Solutions at the end of this issue.

Parma Eldalamberon Vol. 1 No. 3, Paula Marmor

Parma Eldalamberon

The Journal of The Mythopoeic Linguistic Fellowship

Parma Eldalamberon/The Book of the Elven Tongues is the journal of the Mythopoeic Linguistic Fellowship, a Special Interest Group of the Mythopoeic Society, interested in imaginary fantasy languages and all matters linguistic and philosophical, especially the diverse tongues of Middle-earth and the Low Worlds.

More Specialty Definitions, Bernard G. Couvillion

Word Ways

In the February 1970 Word Ways, Louis Delpino introduced Specialty Definitions, a hard-to-define activity best illustrated by examples such as SAWTURNE (carpenter's wine) and LOXATIVE (smoked salmon cathartic). This game seems to be popular with a number of authors.

Shrinking Violets, Dmitri A. Borgmann

Word Ways

For all sorts of reasons, many authors have wanted to conceal their true identities from the public, and have written under the guise of assumed names, or pseudonyms. Famous authors indulging in this practice include Samuel Longhorne Clemens, better known as MARK TWAIN; William Sydney Porter, masquerading as O. HENRY; and the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, disguised as LEWIS CARROLL.

A Logology Cash Contest, Ralph G. Beaman

Word Ways

Given below is a Word List. You are asked to write an essay about it. The entry with the most complete and most definitive discussion will receive the grand prize of twenty-five dollars ($25.00). A consolation prize of five dollars ($5.00) will be awarded to the most amusing or most ingenious entry.