Kickshaw.

Kickshaw. Readers are encouraged to send their favorite linguistic kickshaws Kick´shaws`n. 1. Something fantastical; any trifling, trumpery thing; a toy.Art thou good at these kickshawses!- Shak.2. A fancy dish; a tidbit; a delicacy.Some pigeons, . . . to the Kickshaws editor, at drABC26@aol.com. Answers can be found inAnswers and Solutions at the end of this issue. Top Ten Signs Your Amish Teen is in Trouble In Iowa, as in Pennsylvania, we have the Amish, a people who areabout as self-supporting as any group can get. But the Amish haveteenagers, and that means trouble. Jim Denigan sent this list, from theInternet, of advice to Amish parents:10. Sometimes stays in bed until after 5 am9. In his sock drawer, you find pictures of women without bonnets8. Shows up at barn raisings in full "Kiss" makeup7. When you criticize him, he yells, "Thou sucketh!"6. His name is Jebediah, but he goes by Jeb Daddy5. Defiantly says "If I had a radio, I'd listen to rap"4. You come upon his secret stash of colored socks3. Uses slang expression "Talk to the hand, 'cause the beard ain't listening"2. Was recently pulled over for driving under the influence of cottage cheese1. He's wearing his big black hat backwards Chemistry Meets Folk Songs Mike Morton found an item on the Internet that shows evenscientists get the blues: "Back when Isaac Asimov was a chemist, heloved to order paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde because he could sing it tothe tune of `The Irish Washerwoman'." AEIOU AEIOU Any Easy Intimacy (book)AEIOU Alles Erdreich Ist ?sterreich Untertan (Austria Is to Govern the World)AEIOU Austriae Est Imperare Orbi Universo (Y)x2 Words I recently discovered another solid word with just two each of thefive major vowels AEIOU to add to the select handful of such words whichhave appeared in previous Word Ways. As well as being an AEIOUx2 word,IGOUAHGOUAHIENE (an area in Morocco) contains the tautonymic lettersequence GOUAHGOUAH and, were it not for the letter N, would also be apair isogram i��so��gram?n.See isoline.isogram?See isoline.Noun 1. isogram - a line drawn on a map connecting points having the same numerical value of some variable . I also found several locational hyphenated hy��phen��at��ed?adj.1. Having a hyphen: a hyphenated adjective.2. Often Offensive Of or relating to naturalized citizens or their descendants or culture. examples andphrases with just two AEIOU sets. These include a hyphenated examplewith just two each of not only AEIOU but also the sixth vowel, Y:DZHIYELLIGESTYAKH-OBURUOSA is a strait in Russia. Greek English Matches On eBay, someone is named ILIANA. Partitioned palindromes are words(or any text) that can be divided into palindromic pal��in��dro��micadj.Relapsing; recurring. segments. Eachsegment must be a palindrome palindrome:see anagram. of two or more letters. There are differentkinds of partitioned palindromes based on three main elements: number ofsegments, length of segments, and similarities of palindromes within thesegments. For instance, the name ILIANA has two segments, each threeletters long and the palindromes are different. AGAMEMNON, the name of aGreek king, could be called a 3-3-3 partitioned palindrome, since it hasthree segments, each three letters long, forming three differentpalindromes. It is even more remarkable in that all the vowels are inalphabetic order and all the consonants are in alphabetic order, butthis is one of those bonuses that sometimes occur. Another element of interest in partitioned palindromes is wordlength. In particular, what are the longest words that break apart intopartitioned palindromes? What is the greatest number of partitionedpalindromes of the same length in a single word? Of different lengths?What is the longest partitioned palindrome in a single word (which wouldhave to contain at least one additional palindrome)? What is thegreatest number of different partitioned palindromes in a single word? Some words can be divided in such ways that they form sets of twoor more partitioned palindromes. What are some examples? Some words,like ILLINI or ALABAMA, form partitioned palindromes when the partitioncan be used in each segment it divides (ILLI, INI See INI file. and ALA,ABA,AMA (Automatic Message Accounting) The recording and reporting of telephone calls within a telephone system. It includes the calling and called parties and start and stop times of the call. ). Logological Jury Duty I've recently completed my first jury duty and found theexperience an affirmation of our American judicial system. Those jurorswho wished to take notes were handed a pad manufactured by NationalBrand and titled STENO NOTES. What a wordiful coincidence that theletters in STENO NOTES constitute an anagram anagram[Gr.,=something read backward], rearrangement of the letters of a word or words to make another word or other words. A famous Latin anagram was an answer made out of a question asked by Pilate. ! At that epiphanous moment,I experienced an ONSET of TONES from STONE ETONS. Unreal One of the most unreal definitions in Webster's TenthCollegiate shows just how much of a wonderland the English language canbe while at the same time paying tribute to a storybook sto��ry��book?n.A book containing a collection of stories, usually for children.adj.Occurring in or resembling the style or content of a storybook: storybook characters; a storybook romance. character basedon a little girl who knew an Oxford don who happened to write a bookabout an unreal place populated by unreal characters. ThisAlice-in-Wonderland definition appears under the entry forAlice-in-Wonderland: "adj. [fr. Alice's Adventures inWonderland “Alice in Wonderland” redirects here. For other uses, see Alice in Wonderland (disambiguation).Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a work of children's literature by the English mathematician and author, the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, written (1865) by Lewis Carroll] (1925): suitable to a world offantasy or illusion: UNREAL." It's interesting to note that noone named "Lewis Carroll" wrote a book called Alice inWonderland. However, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson came mighty close bywriting a book called Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I used tothink that one of the highest tributes paid to a creative artist of anykind was to have his or her name listed in a reputable and regulardictionary, not a biographical dictionary, with a definition not of theperson but of something he or she was famous for doing. The best exampleis the entry for Rube Goldberg, whose cartoons came to be known as RubeGoldberg devices. But to have an abridged title of your most famous bookdefined as an adjective--now that is something you'd expect to findgoing through the looking-glass Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) is a work of children's literature by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), generally categorized as literary nonsense. ! Unused, Unlisted, or Unmentioned Ordinals Have you ever made a numbered list of things and at some point, sayitem 34, you remember that you should've included, without removingany other items, a different item 1, because that item should have beenFIRST? Instead of renumbering everything, you put 0 before 1--now yourlist goes from 0 to 34. What is item 0 called, in terms of ordinalnumbers? In Webster's Tenth Collegiate, it would be ZEROTH (jargon) zeroth - First.Since zero is the lowest value of an unsigned binary integer, which is one of the most fundamental types in programming and hardware design, it is often natural to count from zero rather than one, especially when the integer is actually an index, as , whichis defined as "being numbered zero in a series." Fine. Thefirst item on the list is the zeroth number. That means the secondnumber is the first, and the third is the second. Okay. Suppose youdecide to include an item between 0 and 1, and you number it 1/2. Nowyour list begins with items 0, 1/2 and 1. If 0 is the ZEROTH item, thenONE-HALF must be the ONE-HALFTH item. Omigod! It's not in thedictionary! Well, neither is ONE-THIRDTH or ONE-FOURTHTH, so let'sbe liberal and allow them to exist, at least until the end of thisparagraph. Now you decide to add something before 0, and you call thatitem -1. It is the MINUS FIRST on the list. You put another item between3 and 4, and call this new item 3.14159 ... Checking the dictionary,you'll find that mercifully this ordinal (mathematics) ordinal - An isomorphism class of well-ordered sets. has already been coveredunder PITH. But some dictionary editor must've accidentally givenit the wrong pronunciation and the wrong definition. Still, the word isthere, and maybe it will be corrected in the next edition. GOOGOOLTH,"being numbered googol An extremely large number. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, a young nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner (1878-1955), who said a googol was 1 followed by 100 zeros (10100). in a series," isn't listed at all,but we can forgive that omission. There will probably never be a list ofgoogol items. Invariant Word Sets Invariant alphabetical letters are those that appear in the sameposition in a word as in the alphabet--A, ebb, back, etc. In Making theAlphabet Dance, longer invariant words are listed--ApoDEictIcaL,ArChEtypIcaL, nonDEFinItiveNess and a few more, along with a sentencecontaining 16 invariant letters: A BaD EgG Hit KLM KLM Kaiserliche Marine (Enigma: Rising Tide game)KLM Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij (Royal Dutch Airlines)KLM Klub Langer Menschen (German: Tall Person Club)wiPeRS For the town in Belgium which was called 'Wipers' by British soldiers during World War One, See Ypres.The Wipers were a punk rock group formed in Portland, Oregon in 1977 by guitarist Greg Sage, drummer Sam Henry and bassist Dave Koupal. Two WaYs.Another way that invariant alphabetic letters can be used is to take aspecific list of related words that usually occur in a predetermined pre��de��ter��mine?v. pre��de��ter��mined, pre��de��ter��min��ing, pre��de��ter��minesv.tr.1. To determine, decide, or establish in advance: order and arrange the alphabet from A to Z over and over, matching themwith the letters in the words. The results can be surprising. For theGreek letter names, the only matches from ALPHA to OMEGA are the lettersAMAN Aman(ā`măn), the same as Haman. , which can be spaced to spell A MAN. If, instead of beginning withABC ABCin full American Broadcasting Co.Major U.S. television network. It began when the expanding national radio network NBC split into the separate Red and Blue networks in 1928. , the invariant test sequence begins ZAB (ALPHA has ZABCD under it),then the matching letters are ZHIS, respaced to Z HIS. Greek is aman's alphabet! The English number names raise some questions about invariancy. Thebasic question is, for the number names ONE to ONE THOUSANDVIGINTILLION vi��gin��til��lion?n.1. The cardinal number equal to 1063.2. Chiefly British The cardinal number equal to 10120. , how many are invariant with the alphabet arranged in orderover and over and over? The second basic question is, which invariantletter appears most often? For the number names ONE to TWENTY-SIX, thereare ten invariants: HTEWEEOHWE. Note that, after the first threeletters, which transpose trans��posev.To transfer one tissue, organ, or part to the place of another. to THE, the next seven spell three words in arow, WEE, OH, WE. Do most of the invariant letters in the remainingnumber names spell so many words? Is the number system also a wordsystem? The months of the year, from JANUARY to DECEMBER, express theconcept that they represent. Months indicate the rate at which timepasses according to the rate of the moon's passage around theearth, and the only invariant letters are RATE (appearing in MARCH, MAY,SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER). Speaking of the moon, let's go completely solar systemic andturn our telescopes on the nine planets. There must be many, manyincredible invariant messages in the orbits of the orbs and music of thespheres. After all, there are 52 letters, one for each uppercase andlowercase letter of the alphabet, one for each card in a deck, one foreach week in a year. Such wonderful eclipses of numbers must cast manyshadows of letters on the planets' names. It's easy to findout how many planetary invariants there are, and you don't evenhave to arrange the letters of the alphabet under them. Simply print thenames of the nine planets in their order of distance from the sun,closest to farthest. Now count the letters that are underlined. Thereare none! There are more populated planets in the solar system thanthere are invariant letters in their names! E.T., go home! The Invariant Shakespeare Game Another way to use invariants is to play The Invariant Shakespeare,which can be a solitaire solitaireor patience,any card game that can be played by one person. Solitaire is the American name; in England it is known as patience. There are probably more kinds of solitaire than all other card games together. or a competitive game. The rules are simple:(1) pick a line from one of Shakespeare's sonnets and print it on asheet of paper in all capitals in a single line; (2) start with thefirst letter and recite the alphabet, one letter for each sonnet lineletter (as if you'd printed the letters of the alphabet beneath thesonnet line); (3) when you reach a match by speaking the same letter asthat in the line (an invariant letter), cross it off and continue; (4)when you reach the end of the line, make a mark to note that you'vecompleted one pass; (5) continue at the beginning of the line again,using the next letter of the alphabet, and repeat finding matches, butskip over letters that you've crossed off; (6) at the end of theline, continue at the beginning again, and keep doing this until youhave either crossed off all letters or can't cross off any more.Score is based on how many letters you've crossed off divided byhow many times you've gone through the line. In a competitive game,the winner is the person with the highest score. The Sign Store I went to the sign store to check out the signs of the times.It's called SIGN OFF during the day and SIGN ON at night, when theyturn the sign on. A sign in the window advertised Door Prize signs. Asign on the door advertised Window Shopping signs. I went in and askedthe owner how the business was doing. He said it wasn't doing wellat all, and he gave a litany of his frustrations: We didn't sell any Grand Opening signs at our grand opening We left our No Parking signs outside, and people parked on them We gave some Garage Sale signs to a guy who sold them at a garage sale Our Wet Paint signs are still wet We had a sale on For Sale signs, but they didn't sell We couldn't sell our Free With Purchase signs at no discount until we included No Discount signs free with purchase We caught a guy shoplifting our Shoplifters Will Be Prosecuted to the Fullest Extent of the Law signs and prosecuted him to the fullest extent of the law Another shoplifter walked right out the exit with our No Exit signs A dog carried off all our Beware of Dog signs Our Yield signs didn't yield any profit Someone tried to feed our Don't Feed the Bears sign to some bears The last guy to buy a Dead End sign died One of our salesmen set fire to our Fire Sale signs, so we fired him Our Fine for Littering signs are fine for littering Most of our Beware of Falling Rocks signs were destroyed by falling rocks Our Slippery When Wet signs slid down the hill into the river We couldn't sell our One-Way Street signs because they were pointing the other way We're selling our Half Price Sale signs at two for the price of one, and we're selling our Two-for-The-Price-of-One signs at half price If we can't sell our Going Out of Business signs, we're going out of business Ultrabridged Dictionary Unabridged dictionaries aren't unabridged. They're justreally big--400,000 to 500,000 main entries, but who's counting?Unabridged dictionaries contain definitions of a cornucopia cornucopia(kôr'nykō`pēə), in Greek mythology, magnificent horn that filled itself with whatever meat or drink its owner requested. of words,but this raises several problems. The most glaring problem is the factthat people usually go to the dictionary to look up only one word. Theother 499,999 or so are just barriers to finding that one importantword. Buying an unabridged dictionary is like buying a gumball machinefull of a half million all-different gumballs when the only gumball gum��ball?n.A small ball of chewing gum with a colored sugar coating. youwant is the watermelonflavored one that might or might not be in there. The solution is to drastically downsize DownsizeReducing the size of a company by eliminating workers and/or divisions within the company.Notes:When a company downsizes, it is attempting to find ways to improve efficiency and increase profitability.It is sometimes referred to as trimming the fat. dictionaries by creating anUltrabridged Dictionary Series, composed of very short dictionarieswhich define one and only one word apiece. An Ultrabridged Dictionarywould be much cheaper--anywhere from 10 cents for paperback, $1 forcardboard-back, and $20 for the Franklin Mint platinum-flecked,gold-edged, leather-bound limited collector's edition withcertificate of authenticity A Certificate of Authenticity (COA) is a seal or small sticker on a proprietary computer program, t-shirt, jersey, or any other memorabilia item, especially in the world of computers and sports, which is designed to demonstrate that the item is authentic. . Instead of shelling out big bucks forWebster's Unabridged or bigger pounds for the Oxford EnglishDictionary Oxford English Dictionary(OED) great multi-volume historical dictionary of English. [Br. Hist.: Caught in the Web of Words]See : Lexicography , you simply buy the Ultrabridged Dictionary that has the wordyou want to look up. After that, you can look it up again and again byjust opening the dictionary to the page following the title page. Wordswith lots of definitions would have an abridged entry that would fit onboth sides of a single page. Thus, there is only a first page and a lastpage, but no middle pages that you might turn to by accident. The firstpage is number 1 and the last page number 2. With only one entry toconsider, you don't have to be distracted by other entries you comeacross along the way. You might argue that an Ultrabridged Dictionary wouldn't helpif you wanted to look up a word that isn't in it, but this canhappen with any dictionary, no matter how big it is. In an UltrabridgedDictionary, you know just by looking at the title on the cover whetherthe word is in it or not. For instance, if you want to look up"no" but all you have is the Ultrabridged Dictionary Volume499,024: YES, then you don't have to open the book to know that"no" isn't in it. Instead, you can go to the bookstoreand buy the volume you need. How many words on the average to Americanslook up in a year? Two or three? Maybe four? And people who can'tread look up fewer than one. If each dictionary user would buy only those UltrabridgedDictionaries that he or she needs, the money left over from the familyunabridged dictionary nest-egg could be donated to a long-overdueproject: building, supplying and staffing the Logological Institute ofTechnology (LIT) that would specialize in wordplay, letterplay, andrelated matters, and would receive government funding for research inorder to increase the body of logological knowledge up to the level ofsuch less-important fields of study as microbiology or lawn-gnomecraftsmanship. The LIT library, of course, would have a complete run ofall 500,000+ Ultrabridged Dictionaries to meet the individual needs ofevery student. After all, words are like snowflakes snowflakessmall patches of gray or white hair acquired after birth. Skin color is unchanged. See also achromotrichia, vitiligo. ; no two people, withthe possible exception of Siamese twins, look up the same ones. By comparison, the telephone companies can offer no ultrabridgedtelephone book. The phone book of a city has to be unabridged (omittingonly those people who don't want to be listed or who use stolencell phones) because people rely on phone books many times a day so theycan find the phone number of a friend, business associate, waitress,etc. The names are listed in alphabetic order, followed by thetelephonic definition, which usually includes the phone number and theaddress. As the saying goes, if it weren't for phone books, peoplewouldn't know how to read dictionaries. The current trend among newparents to read sections of the telephone book to their children as ameans of teaching dictionary usage would no longer be necessary--theycould instead return to children's alphabet books. Some Ultrabridged Dictionaries could serve as greeting cards forspecial occasions. A person could send Volume 24,529: LOVE onValentine's Day. A collection agency could send Volume 81,244:DEBTOR to the person that owes money but doesn't know thedefinition of "debtor". Volume 285,311 would be the mostUltrabridged Dictionary of all, defining NOTHING with its two pagescompletely blank except for the page numbers and the headword head��word?n.1. A word, phrase, or name, usually set in boldface or other distinctive type, that serves as the heading for an entry in a dictionary, encyclopedia, or similar reference work. Also called entry word.2. on page 1.The collectors' edition would appeal to the rich; however, childrencould just as easily collect the cardboardback edition, just like theycollect baseball cards today. The advantage here is that instead of asmall set of 500, there would be more than 500,000 in a set. If a childstarted to collect in kindergarten at age 5 and acquired 25 differentvolumes a day, he or she would complete the collection around age 60. Atthe same rate, a set of 500 baseball cards could be completed in just 20days. Where is the challenge? In the same vein, bibliomaniacs couldincrease their holdings by 500,000 without needing much more than threeor four modestly-wide shelves. Not many people can boast 500,000 booksin their personal library. The Ultrabridged Dictionary has many otheradvantages over all other dictionaries, but space permits listing only asmall fraction of them. Certainly more advantages will turn up after thevolumes are issued. The shift from Unabridged to UltrabridgedDictionaries is the wave of the word that would be in Volume 128,381:FUTURE. David I rented the movie Artificial Intelligence on a Digital Video Disc See DVD. Digital Video Disc - Digital Versatile Disc .It was a self-referential rental. The consonants of my name are DVD DVD:see digital versatile disc. DVDin full digital video disc or digital versatile discType of optical disc. The DVD represents the second generation of compact-disc (CD) technology. , andthe vowels are Al. I liked the movie, too. A Jesuit's Tale of Divine Wordplay In the last Word Ways, Jim Puder pointed out something specialabout St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Roman Catholic Jesuitorder--namely, the last four letters of IGNATIUS are the reverse of thelast four letters of JESUIT. Such a coincidence seems almost like arevelation, as if a guardian angel had singled those words out to spendan eternity in esidarap paradise. However, as Jim showed, it can be alleh in reverse trying to fulfill that beatific be��a��tif��ic?adj.Showing or producing exalted joy or blessedness: a beatific smile.[Latin be destiny. As an alumnus ALUMNUS, civil law. A child which one has nursed; a foster child. Dig. 40, 2, 14. of an all-boys' Jesuit prep school (St. Louis U. High), I feel thatI owe it to my Jebbie taskmasters, I mean teachers, to attempt thesupernaturally difficult task of using IGNATIUS and JESUIT. In addition,as penance for all my sins from the upside-down year of 1961 through thepalindromic year of 2002, I'll include LOYOLA in the palindrome togive hope to the souls in purgatory. How to do this? Hmm ... Ah! When I was in high school, my music teacher began each choirpractice with a story that illustrated St. Ignatius's great love ofmusic. At the start of one practice, Father Fasolati told us that longago the Jesuits wanted to exclude one of the two vowel notes, A or E,from the octave, but they couldn't decide which. They wrote the twonotes on paper and took it to wise Ignatius. After meditating on thequestion for a short while, he silently pointed to the E and shook hishead "no." Most of the Jesuits interpreted this to man"no, don't keep E." However, a very pious member of theorder, whom everyone called Angle the Angel, fervently believed thatIgnatius shook his head "no" to mean "no, don'tremove E." Brother Angle was torn between the two letters since hisname began with one and ended with the other. Another Jesuit, thefanatical Brother Otto, known both for his unwavering devotion toIgnatius and for his talent as a holy palindromist Pa`lin´dro`mistn. 1. A writer of palindromes. , told Brother Angle,whom he now considered a musical heretic, what Ignatius really meant. Henaturally put it in a palindrome: E, not A! Atone! Ignatius ejected on a Loyola nod, etc., E, JesuitAngle, not A, a tone. Brother Angle was a blessed charadist who wrote poems that used thesame letters with different spacing and meaning in each line. Althoughhe didn't believe Brother Otto, he appreciated the charade embeddedin Brother Otto's palindrome (ATONE, A TONE), and so he repliedwith a simple, pure, and beatific charade showing both his doubt that Ewas excluded and his concern that "Te Deum," the hymn ofpraise to God, couldn't be sung without it. Out of respect forBrother Otto, Brother Angle included his fellow Jesuit's nicknameto indicate that it wasn't Ignatius but Otto who wanted to excludeE: A note: A, not E? A? No `Te'! An Ot E? When Ignatius heard of Brother Otto's devotional palindromeand of Brother Angie's humble charade, he was almost moved totears. However, since Ignatius was not only a saint but also a masteranagrammatist, he mused on the musical dilemma by anagramming TEARSinstead of weeping them. The result was his little-known prayer to St.Ear, patron saint of sound: St. Ear, tears stare ... Rats! E rates rest! A rates star! E?E's art tears A! Rest, St. Ear. At that point he decided to allow both of the vowel notes tocontinue coexisting in harmony. Instead of dropping A or E, he decidedto rid the octave of Z, the last note of all. Nobody protested--exceptfor old Father Zeke. With the wisdom of Solomon Wisdom of Solomonor Wisdom,early Jewish book included in the Septuagint and the Vulgate but not in the Hebrew Bible. The book opens with an exhortation to seek wisdom, followed by a statement on worldly attitudes. , Ignatius dealt fairlywith Father Zeke's complaint by admitting Z back into the octave onthe condition that it be sung only when the singer or singers weresleeping. Father Zeke accepted this with the fervor of a religiouszealot: he wrote hymns that followed Ignatius's rule and publishedthem in a legendary songbook titled "Hymns in the Key of Z."He published only two copies and gave one to Ignatius, who, somebelieve, showed it to other saints, who had a merry time looking at it.The other copy wound up in the Vatican Library. No one knows how it gotthere. Some say it was a humorous form of miracle. All of the hymns arecomposed of the only note Father Zeke ever used for the rest of hislife, Z, in a dazzling variety of ways, and all the lyrics are writtenwith words spelled with one or more Z's. The only place that otherletters appear is in the title of each hymn: "Swing Low, SweetPillow," "Amazing Cover, How Warm It Is," "Bed ofAges," and many others. However, below the imprimatur on the titlepage, the potential singer finds this stern warning: "By Jesuitdecree, these hymns are not to be practiced or sung aloud, under pain ofmortal sin, until the singer has fallen asleep." Today, Z is knownamong Jesuits by several other names. In tribute to Father Zeke, somecall it "The Sound of MuZeke." Others refer to it as "thenote dreams are made of," "the humming of angel wings,""the melancholy melody of midnight," "St. Uvula'sululation," "the Gregorian chant of the soft palate,""Lazarus laughter," and "the sacred snore snore(snor)1. rough, noisy breathing during sleep, due to vibration of the uvula and soft palate.2. to produce such sounds during sleep.snorev. ." A final note: the assistant music teacher at St. Louis University,Brother D. O'Remi, claims that Father Fasolati made up some of thisstory, but I tend to believe the good Father. It's just toodetailed and realistic to be a fabrication. But for some, it may stillbe a matter of faith to accept such a miraculous tale of heavenlywordplay. Amen. America, Love It Or Leave It Last Christmas, on a visit to friends in Evansville, Indiana, Ispotted a patriotic sign in front of a motel. At first I though it saidAMERICAN, LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT, but I had to do a double-take. The signused those removable letters such as the ones well above the ground attheater marquees, but this sign was sitting at ground level. Someprankster had taken the first two letters from STAY on the back side andused them to spell a much different patriotic message: AMERICA, LOVETITS OR LEAVE IT. Spelunking Palindromes In the last Word Ways, Bill O'Connor created palindromic chaosin a cave by asking Eva what he could do in it. What he didn'trealize was that Tau Cave had to be evacuated: Evacuate Tau Cave! Did I evacuate Tau Cave? I did. Now it is evacuated, I hide. Tau Cave's it! I won! Was I evacuated? I hide! Tau Cave I saw. E.g., never evacuate Tau Cave! Revenge! Tops, lad! It's evacuated! I hide Tau Cave's tidal spot. No elf? Far side? Tau Cave's evacuated! Is raffle on? One car, no ride! Tau Cave's evacuated! Iron race? No. No! Derided Nobel bonafide! Tau Cave's evacuated if a noble bonded ire, Don. Tip `til no omen ode? Tau Cave's evacuated one moonlit pit. To plan, Eva, evacuate Tau Cave, a venal pot. From Cyberspace As mentioned before, OSAMA BIN LADEN Osama bin Laden:see bin Laden, Osama. anagrams an��a��gram?n.1. A word or phrase formed by reordering the letters of another word or phrase, such as satin to stain.2. anagrams (used with a sing. to IS A LONE BAD MAN,which was independently discovered by many people. Unfortunately, theanagram is flawed: Bin Laden isn't a lone terrorist, he isn'tsimply bad, and he isn't necessarily alive. Mike Morton writes thata new, more accurate anagram of the name has been making the Internetrounds. Recently the US has been looking for genetic signs of OSAMA BINLADEN by examining SOME DNA DNA:see nucleic acid. DNAor deoxyribonucleic acidOne of two types of nucleic acid (the other is RNA); a complex organic compound found in all living cells and many viruses. It is the chemical substance of genes. IN A LAB. Prisons of Wordplay Within the bars of prison names, wordplay has been caged. SANQUENTIN PRISON has perhaps the most incredible collection ofincarcerated incarcerated/in��car��cer��at��ed/ (in-kahr��ser-at?ed) imprisoned; constricted; subjected to incarceration. in��car��cer��at��edadj.Confined or trapped, as a hernia. letters of all. First, it uses eight consecutive letters ofthe alphabet (NOPQRSTU); second, it uses all five major vowels; andthird, N (the first of the consecutive letters) is the first consonantto follow the first occurrence of each vowel. Rival prison ALCATRAZ,although no logological San Quentin, is a univocalic (using A'sonly) whose letters go from A to Z. It also has a CAT with a RAT on itstail. (The RAT is TRA TRA TrainingTRA TransferTRA TransitionTRA Tennessee Regulatory AuthorityTRA Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Oman)TRA Tax Reform Act (1976, 1984, or 1986)TRA Teachers Retirement Association , the reverse of ART.) Finally, the third of thesefamous temples of criminal justice, SING-SING, fits into a sentence thatuses the same syllable/word 13 times, a sentence so normal-soundingthat--who knows?--it might have been a musical direction given by theleader of the maximum security glee club. Here it is: when you sing"Sing, Sing-Sing, sing `Sing-Sing," Sing-Sing, sing"Sing-Sing" sing-song! Iowa, Ohio, And ... In Nebraska there is a fabled city unlike any other in the UnitedStates. Its name spells the names of two states in an overlappingsequence of letters, OHIOWA. As icing on the cake, the two overlappingletters are IO, the initials of the two connected state names. If anyother cities have overlapping state names, let them come forth and sharethe limelight. A Palindrome Sings Opera Art Small wrote the poem below, whose title appears above. Artexplains its inspiration as follows: "While looking out the windowfrom my study I saw a slip of white against a tree. I went out toinvestigate and found this note. I read it backwards and forwards but itmade little sense to me. I thought you might better understand it, so Isend it on to you." A Palindrome struggled to extricate itself from the bounds that held its voice so tightly. It wanted to be able to sing. It paced forwards and backwards, twisting against the restrictions the alphabet imposed. Vowels and consonants stood around Wanting to be of help But there was little they could do. For one brief moment he thought he had freed his voice. It was a sound like opera. But then it faded, retreated within itself. He asked again the question that had plagued him: Are poets a waste? Opera! Nicknamania My son Danny brought up the question: which name has the mostnicknames, including plausible spelling variants? For commonly-knownnicknames, we decided that Richard may score highest with 13. Wedidn't use any official source, so the list is speculative: Rich,Richie, Richy, Rick, Ricky, Rickie, Ricki, Rik, Riki, Rikki, Dick,Dickie, Dicky. Can you find more? Which girl's name has the mostnicknames? Richard (Rich? Richie?) Lederer suggests Elizabeth. Whichother names for either gender have ten or more nicknames? Dawkins is thenickname for what name? Number Packing In the last Kickshaws Jim Puder suggested finding transadditionsfor every pair of neighboring numbers. In the same issue, David Robinsonpacked the names of the months, presidents, and states in single chainsof letters. Combining both ideas, I fiddled with a packing problem thatinvolves combining neighboring numbers. The challenge is to start at anynumber and try packing the next two or more so that the optimum packinguses the same number of letters as the sum of the numbers. Any orderednumber series can be used. In the examples that follow, the first twoare counting numbers and the last two are numbers from the Fibonacciseries. For each of the two series, those are the only chains that work.I tried other series in which the difference between each number wasconstant. Numbers with differences of two, three, and four produced atotal of four pairs but no chains of three or more numbers. What otherseries could be successfully used? FTWOUHRENE (1+2+3+4 = 10) FTWOUHREE (2+3+4 = 9) FIVTWHREONE (Fibonacci 1+2+3+5 = 11) FIVTWOHREE (Fibonacci 2+3+5 = 10) Great Scott! Comic Book Poetry! When I was a kid, I collected comic books with the fervor of asuperhero su��per��he��ro?n. pl. su��per��he��roesA figure, especially in a comic strip or cartoon, endowed with superhuman powers and usually portrayed as fighting evil or crime. bent on ridding the world of evildoers hiding in theirunderground lairs. My parents let me have an entire large closet withsix long shelves for storing my comics in stacks. When t got into highschool, I thought of comics as kid stuff and of girls as grown-up grown-up?adj.1. Of, characteristic of, or intended for adults: grown-up movies; a grown-up discussion.2. stuff.I sold them (the comics, that is) to a hobby shop for two cents apiece.Most of them were DC superhero comics in mint condition from the late1950s to 1964. I got $12 for the 600 or so that I had; today they'dbe worth $50,000 to $100,000. Anyway, all regrets aside, I was an experton the comics of that period. Two comic books used a poem as part oftheir main character's stock shtick shtickalso schtick or shtik ?n. Slang1. A characteristic attribute, talent, or trait that is helpful in securing recognition or attention: . In one child's comic(before I got into superheros), the main characters were Mary Jane (acharacter like Alice in Wonderland) and Sniffles snif��fle?intr.v. snif��fled, snif��fling, snif��fles1. To breathe audibly through a runny or congested nose.2. To weep or whimper lightly with spasmodic congestion of the nose.n.1. (a mouse). Each episodebegan with Mary Jane reciting a two-line poem that enabled her to shrinkdown in size and join her mouse pal on an adventure. In the superherocomic, Green Lantern had an incredible power ring that could do justabout anything he willed it to do, but every day he had to renew itspower by reciting a poem and holding his power ring in front of thespecial green lantern at his home. Green Lantern is still alive andkicking alive and vigorously active.See also: kicking , but Mary Jane joined Alice and Dorothy in Neverneverland. Bothpoems appear below (from memory, so they might not be totally correct).Are there any other comics in which the characters gained powers oraccomplished something by repeating a special poem? If not, here is theentire canon of Comic Book Poems:MARY JANE'S POEM O, magic words of poof poof piffles, Make me just as small as Sniffles.GREEN LANTERN'S POEM In brightest day, in darkest night, No evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil's might Beware my power--green lantern's light. Clock Numbers Number name convergence series have been discussed in numerousarticles. In such a series, the alphabetic values (A=1 to Z=26) of theletters of the name of any positive number add up to produce anothernumber. The alphabetic values of that number name are added up toproduce another, and so on, till they converge to a single name or acycle of numbers (-216-228-288-255-240- in English). The numbers on aclock work differently--they go from 1 to 12 and then back to 1, overand over. This closed circular system makes it easy to trace all theconvergence paths. For instance, ONE = 15+14+5 = 34. Since there is no34 on a clock, this is divided by 12 and the remainder is the nextnumber in the series. ONE = 34/12 = 2 remainder 10; thus, ONE = 10. (Ifthe remainder is 0, then the number is equal to 12.) At the right is adiagram showing how the 12 numbers converge; single lines mean that theconvergence pattern goes downward. Thus, SEVEN goes to FIVE goes to SIX,etc. Double lines mean that the pattern goes back up; TEN goes to THREEis the only one. All numbers converge to the -THREE-EIGHT-ONE-TEN-cycle. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Future Titles: Books in Preparation As far as sales go, the most important part of a book is its title.The title names the book, and it also gives the cover artist the themefor the cover. And, since the title first appears on the cover,that's what really determines whether a person is going to evenpick the book off the shelf. I've worked at four bookstores, and Iknow from experience that people always judge a book by its cover. Ilove making up titles and imagining what the cover should be.There's the Book of the Month Club, but why not a Title of theMonth Club? I'm currently not working on two books that I havetitles for: Ventriloquism ventriloquism:see puppet. ventriloquismArt of “throwing” one's voice in such a way that the sound seems to come from a source other than the speaker. for Dummies and Secrets of a Tic-Tac-ToeGrandmaster. Recently a fellow title maker sent a list of titles thatare so clever they are guaranteed to win the National Book Award or thePulitzer, but there's one problem: when a person has created theultimate title, writing the book is like being helicoptered to the peakof Mt. McKinley and then having to climb down. Will Anil come through onthese gems of the title maker's art? Only time will tell. Einstein and His Relatives The Nuclear Family as Nuclear Breeder A Textbook of Pornographic Genetics, or "Let's Get into Each Other's Genes" Electron Microscopy of the Yin-Yang Interface Lost in the Bewilderness It's All an Optional Illusion Beyond Nietzsche and Skinner [both of whom wrote well-known Beyond ... books] Pro Con: The Lawyer as Legal Sophist Asinine Tales, or Polycaudal Donkeys at Sea Letteral Words The May and August 1970 Kickshaws, according to Anil, featuredalphonetics called "Literal Words"--pronouncing a `word'letter by letter. They cited 26 examples from Walter Penney, DavidSilverman, Ross Eckler, Murray Pearce and Josefa Byrne. Best exampleswere DFI See Direct foreign investment. , XLNC, XPDNC, MNNC, RST, NRG NRG EnergyNRG NRG Energy, Inc.NRG Natural Resources GroupNRG New Radiancy GroupNRG Network Referral GroupNRG Network Resource GrapherNRG Numerics Rapporteur GroupNRG Neuroprosthetics Research GroupNRG notional requirements generator , NTT NTT Nippon Telegraph and Telephone CorporationNTT New Technology TelescopeNTT National Technology Transfer, IncNTT Name That Tune (TV game show)NTT National Tree TrustNTT Number Theoretic Transform , RABN RABN Russian AIDS Banner Network , OPM See Oracle Process Manufacturing. , DVS DVS Det Vill S?ga (Swedish)DVS Descriptive Video ServiceDVS Dynamic Voltage ScalingDVS Driver and Vehicle Services (Minnesota)DVS Digital Video SystemDVS Digital Video Services , NVS NVS - Non-Volatile Storage and TDS TDStotal dissolved solids. .I missed any follow-up, so I brazenly offer a further list 32 yearslater. And I recommend a misspelling mis��spell��ing?n.1. The act or an instance of spelling incorrectly.2. A word spelled incorrectly.Noun 1. of the title to the more revealingpun name of Letteral Words, a nonce (Number ONCE) An arbitrary number that is generated for security purposes such as an initialization vector. A nonce is used only one time in any security session. Although random and pseudo-random numbers theoretically produce unique numbers, there is the possibility that homophone hom��o��phone?n.One of two or more words, such as night and knight, that are pronounced the same but differ in meaning, origin, and sometimes spelling. that stresses the"letter" etymology etymology(ĕtĭmŏl`əjē), branch of linguistics that investigates the history, development, and origin of words. It was this study that chiefly revealed the regular relations of sounds in the Indo-European languages (as described of "literal" rather than itsmodern connotations of not figurative, not exaggerated, or verbatim. Ialso include many bigrams, which the earlier article seemed to findunworthy of mention, and I extend the concept to letter-numeral and acouple of letter-symbol words--and to phrases. Some letteral bigrams arein wide use: EZ, FX, MT, 4X, K9. The following `words' are so obvious I'll mostly dispensewith translations unless there are multiple answers. But, as an aid,they are alphabetized al��pha��bet��ize?tr.v. al��pha��bet��ized, al��pha��bet��iz��ing, al��pha��bet��iz��es1. To arrange in alphabetical order.2. To supply with an alphabet. by true spelling. IL (aisle, isle, I'll, I yell), AL, LRG LRG LargeLRG Liquefied Refinery GasesLRG Local and Regional GovernmentsLRG Long Range AircraftLRG Looking Real GoodLRG Location Reference GroupLRG Local Reference GroupLRG Library Resource Guide (Information Today, Inc), NLG NLGThe ISO 4217 currency code for the Dutch Guilder. 6, NIL8, RA, RT,SN9, SQ, SSS SSSabbr.sick sinus syndrome , AVN AVN AviationAVN AvenueAVN Adult Video NewsAVN Avascular NecrosisAVN Atrioventricular NodeAVN Aviation Model (weather forecast model, now Global Forecast System)AVN Air Vanuatu (ICAO code), OA, B10, 134, B9, KG, DK, D9'(denyin'),XTC XTCSee Ecstasy, MDMA. , LMN LMNlower motor neuron. 8, MN8, NV, SKP SKP Suomen Kommunistinen Puolue (Communist Party of Finland)SKP Sveriges Kommunistiska Parti (Communist Party of Sweden)SKP Sisemajanduse Koguproduktist (Estonian), SA, XX (execs, exacts), 4A, 4M (forerim,forum), 4C, `AZ (hazy), `R10 (hearten heart��en?tr.v. heart��ened, heart��en��ing, heart��ensTo give strength, courage, or hope to; encourage. See Synonyms at encourage. ), `I10 (heighten), LO, IC, MNCT MNCT Median Nerve Compression TestMNCT Master Network Control Terminal ,NDN NDN IndianNDN Naples Daily News (Daily news paper in Naples Florida)NDN Non Delivery NotificationNDN National Data NetworkNDN NecdinNDN New Democratic NetworkNDN Next Door NeighborNDN Nevada Donor Network , N8, NO cents, N10CT, N2, IR (ire, eyer), IV, JL, OBDNC (obediency),ODS (Operational Data Store) A database designed for queries on transactional data. An ODS is often an interim or staging area for a data warehouse, but differs in that its contents are updated in the course of business, whereas a data warehouse contains static data. , PN (paean Paean(pē`ən), Paean was an epithet for Apollo, the healer. The paean, a hymn of praise to Apollo and often to other gods, was sung as a prayer for safety or deliverance at battles and other important occasions. , paeon pae��on?n.In quantitative verse, a foot of one long syllable and three short syllables occurring in any order.[Latin pae , peon (jargon) peon - A person with no special (root or wheel) privileges on a computer system. "I can't create an account on foovax for you; I'm only a peon there." , peein'), 6S, TNMN TNMN Trans National Monitoring Network [] (Tianamen Square),110 (wantin', wanton, want in), YL (while, wile), Y10, YR (whyer,wire), EN To extend the game, here are some semi-letteralalphonetici-orthographic hybrids: GODsick, 14E tower, log-LOG (poorhomophone, but apt double logging for logology), CD character (BD eyes,XS hair, Xetra). And three easy letteral phrases: NE1410S?, 4Q (a rudecomment), and CNIK9. The following Letteral Phrases are real crowd teasers, a goodpuzzle if unpunctuated and unaccented un��ac��cent��ed?adj.1. Having no diacritical mark. Used of a word, syllable, or letter.2. Having weak stress or no stress, as in pronunciation or metrical rhythm.Adj. 1. . They're again alphabeticalby true spelling. One trickster trickster,a mythic figure common among Native North Americans, South Americans, and Africans. Usually male but occasionally female or disguised in female form, he is notorious for exaggerated biological drives and well-endowed physique; partly divine, partly human, depends on the British pronunciation ofZ (zed); another uses a common British first name and pronounces 0 as"owe".1. AGNC2. NRDRR2U3. FSSFZZ4. P708717XP87128HSNHS 1284FRNFRR75. CUNW6. CZA7. UN10Q British Alphabetization al��pha��bet��ize?tr.v. al��pha��bet��ized, al��pha��bet��iz��ing, al��pha��bet��iz��es1. To arrange in alphabetical order.2. To supply with an alphabet. The British do things differently from the rest of us. Sir JeremyMorse writes of a unique alphabetization scheme used at Child'sBank where he started working in 1953, which "operated normally forthe first letter, but thereafter according to the first vowel, with allcases where that vowel was A coming, again in conventional order, beforeall with E,I,O,U, etc. Thus BLAND came before BENNETT, BRISTOW beforeBOND, STANLEY before SPENCER before SMITH before SLOANE before SCHULZ.It made no difference if the first letter was itself a vowel (ASTAIREbefore ALLEN before AIRD), but where there was no following vowel (ASHor ORR), these names came before the A..A..'s and O..A..'s.The rationale given for this extraordinary practice was that when theclerk was checking handwritten hand��write?tr.v. hand��wrote , hand��writ��ten , hand��writ��ing, hand��writesTo write by hand.[Back-formation from handwritten.]Adj. 1. signatures on cheques, the vowels weresupposed to stand out more clearly than the consonants. When you hadbeen sorting cheques all day on this system, it became difficult to lookup names in the telephone directory!" ANSWERS AND SOLUTIONS Kickshaws by Dave Morice Nicknamia DAWKINS is an obscure nickname for DAVID. Another unusualvariant is the irst name of poet DAVI DET DETdiethyltryptamine. DETn.Diethyltryptamine; a hallucinogenic agent similar to DMT. HOMPSON, whose birth name isDAVID E. THOMPSON. Letteral Words 1. Aegean Sea (were you fooled by the resemblance to"agency" or did you C the C?) 2. An "har-de-har-har" to you--from The Simpsons 3. [Writing] half-ass S-F's easy (a useful phrase, but an `FSletteral since S-F is an acronym, not a word. S-F is much preferred byfan clubs over "sci-fi") 4. Peace (Heaven) awaits Evan once Heaven expiates Evan. Want towait ages and ages? Want to wait forever and ever? Arse, Evan! (this vanmust be one irredeemable sinner) 5. See you and double you (in poker or bridge) 6. Seize the day (C zed A)--carpe DMZ (DeMilitarized Zone) A middle ground between an organization's trusted internal network and an untrusted, external network such as the Internet. Also called a "perimeter network," the DMZ is a subnetwork (subnet) that may sit between firewalls or off one leg of a . 7. You win--thank you [for playing]DAVID MORICEIowa City, Iowa