Kickshaws.

Kickshaws. 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. San Francisco Earthquake San Francisco earthquakedisaster claiming many lives and most of city (1906). [Am. Hist.: Jameson, 443–444]See : Disaster Horror At this writing, it's earthquake season in California. This isa good time to turn to a book I bought a few years ago at a garage salefor $2.50 titled San Francisco Earthquake Horror by Hubert D. Russell.It's a great book, with a horrifying cover showing buildingsquaking, a drawing no less, with eerie crumbling letters spelling outthe title. It was published shortly after the 1906 quake, and at somepoint my copy got submerged in water. The pages are wrinkled because ofthe water, but it's not mildewed or dry rotted in any way. In aprevious Kickshaw, the topic of long book titles came up. This book hasthe longest title-with-subtitle that I've ever seen. See if you caninhale as much as you can and then read the whole thing aloud withouttaking a breath. (On the third try I made it all the way to theend--just barely.) If you tried it, you're out of breath now. Ifyou succeeded, congratulations! If you didn't, keep trying untilyou do. There you go--success at last! Note how cleverly the title incorporates the names of two otherauthors; the principal author's name is on the copyright page.Here's the title-subtitle in all its quaky grandeur: SAN FRANCISCO Earthquake Horror A Comprehensive and Connected Account of the Terrible Tragedy thatBefell the People of Our Golden City--The Metropolis of the Golden Gate,and the Death and Ruin Dealt Many Adjacent Cities and SurroundingCountry. Destroying Earthquake Comes Without Warning, in the Early Hoursof he Morning; Immense Structures Topple and Crumble Great LelandStanford University Succumbs; Water Mains Demolished and Fire CompletesDevastation; Fighting Fire with Dynamite. SCENES OF DEATH AND TERRORThousands Killed, Maimed maim?tr.v. maimed, maim��ing, maims1. To disable or disfigure, usually by depriving of the use of a limb or other part of the body. See Synonyms at batter1.2. , or Unaccounted For; Tens of Thousands WithoutFood or Shelter; Martial Law martial law,temporary government and control by military authorities of a territory or state, when war or overwhelming public disturbance makes the civil authorities of the region unable to enforce its law. Declared; Millions Donated for Relief;Congress Makes an Appropriation; Sympathetic Citizens Throughout theLand Untie Their Purse-Strings to Aid the Suffering and Destitute;Property Loss Hundreds of Millions; Appalling Stories by Eye Witnessesand Survivors; the Disaster as Viewed by Scientists, etc. ComprisingAlso a Vivid Portrayal of the Recent Death-Dealing ERUPTION OF MT.VESUVIUS BY RICHARD LINTHICUM of the Editorial Staff of the ChicagoChronicle. Together with twelve descriptive chapters giving a graphicand detailed account of the most interesting and historic disasters ofthe past from ancient times to the present day. BY TRUMBULL WHITEHistorian, Traveler and Geographer. Profusely pro��fuse?adj.1. Plentiful; copious.2. Giving or given freely and abundantly; extravagant: were profuse in their compliments. illustrated withPhotographic Scenes of the Great Disasters and Views of the Devastated dev��as��tate?tr.v. dev��as��tat��ed, dev��as��tat��ing, dev��as��tates1. To lay waste; destroy.2. To overwhelm; confound; stun: was devastated by the rude remark. Cities and Their People. A Punctuation Conundrum Rich Lederer and Gary Hallock, director of the Great AmericanPun-Off in Austin, Texas, have this punctual punc��tu��al?adj.1. Acting or arriving exactly at the time appointed; prompt.2. Paid or accomplished at or by the appointed time.3. Precise; exact.4. puzzle for you to solve: what is a four letter word for a three letter word which has five letters yet is still spelled with three letters, while it has only two and rarely has six and never is spelled with five Jawbreaker jaw��break��er?n.1. A very hard candy.2. Slang A word that is difficult to pronounce.3. A machine that crushes rock or ore. Words Eric Iverson has taken a game of balls and made it into a game ofwords--Jawbreaker Words. As Eric describes it "Jawbreaker is a gamewhere you are presented with a grid of colored balls. If two or moredirectly adjacent balls are the same color, they can be selected anddeleted. The remaining balls then move into the resulting space. If thisbrings together two or more previously non-adjacent balls of the samecolor, they can be selected and deleted, etc ... The game stops when nogroups or two or more directly adjacent colored balls are left. "I define a jawbreaker word as one where all substrings of twoor more of the same letter can be successively deleted, leaving at theend of the process a legal word. For example, one can remove NN and thenII from SHINNIED, resulting in SHED. I give each word a score based onthe number of letters that can be deleted; I limit results to words thatyield a score of seven or more, and result in a final words of four ormore letters. MISSISSIPPIANS with a score of ten results in MANS,VILLIANESSES and TENNESSEEANS with scores of eight result in VANS andTANS, and TENNESSEANS and DRUNKENNESSES with scores of seven result inTANS and DRUNKS. There are a host of words with scores of six orless." Letter-Product Equivalency "On page gq of Opperlans!," the editor writes, "HugoCorstius presents a 5x8 grid with FORTY and CUARENTA (Spanish for 40)inscribed in��scribe?tr.v. in��scribed, in��scrib��ing, in��scribes1. a. To write, print, carve, or engrave (words or letters) on or in a surface.b. To mark or engrave (a surface) with words or letters. on a vertical and a horizontal line, respectively. Are thereany other number names from English and another language for which theproduct of the letters is equal to the number name? The only possiblecandidate number names in English are 6 (3 letters), 12 (6), 30 (6), 33(11), 36 (9), 40 (5), 45 (9), 50 (5), 54 (9), 56 (8), 60 (5), 70 (7), 81(9), 88 (11), 90 (6), 100 (10), 112 (16), 150 (15), 170 (17), 200 (10),240 (15), 252 (18), 300 (12), 304 (16), 340 (17), 405 (15), 406 (14) and418 (19), through 450. The only number names in other (common) languagesthat I have been able to find are Italian QUARANTA and French QUARANTEin the original example, plus French DEUX CENT QUARANTE (16) for 240. Ideliberately refrained from looking for Looking forIn the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. rarer language examples in thenumber problem, hoping that readers would do so." Two things are needed to find answers to this problem. First, thehandy list above that Ross provided of possible English number names,and second, a book containing number names in other languages. I usedKarl Menninger's fascinating book Number Words and Number Symbols.A Cultural History of Numbers (MIT MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1969). Here are the ones Ifound, most of which are in less-common languages. Can readers findother examples? TWELVE is da in Irish THIRTY is preis in Gothic FORTY is de-ugient in Welsh and deu ugens in Cornish FIFTY is pese-dhiete in Albanian and lahu-y-oxkal in Mayan SIXTY is tre-sinds-tyve in Danish SEVENTY is ant-sibunda in Old Saxon and dec ar tri-ug in Welsh ONE HUNDRED is een honderd in Dutch, en hunderod in Old Saxon, andein zehan-zo in Old High German Nine-Integer Magical Square In the website rec.puzzles, Eric Angelini asked readers to find anine-integer magical square where all eight alignments of three numberswould share a distinct letter. William Rex Marshall found the solutionat left below in which the total of the nine numbers is 215:3 7 5 E 3 13 14 R2 46 4 O 2 1 4 O8 36 104 H 8 7 5 ET S F diagonals I, R T N F The editor comments that it would be more meaningful to find a truemagic square with this property, in which at least the rows and thecolumns had a common letter (ignoring the diagonals). How about it, LeeSallows Sallows is a fell in the English Lake District, rising between the valleys of Kentmere and Troutbeck. It is the highest point in the upland area to the south of Garburn Pass, variously termed Kentmere Park and Applethwaite Common on Ordnance Survey maps. ? Considering just rows and columns as Ross suggests, there areseveral possible problems. For instance, which set of nine numbers hasthe shortest span from lowest to highest? The perfect square of thistype would have nine numbers and a span of 8. The set at the right abovegoes from 1 to 14 and thus has a span of 13. It wasn't hard toassemble, but can a square with a shorter span be found? Are there anyperfect squares? If not, what is the square having the smallest span?Can a four-square be found? Soft Shoe Fits Hero An interesting letterplay feature can be squeezed out ofAngelini's square. If you take the middle letter of the horizontalsand add it to the vertical, and the middle letter of the verticals andadd it to the horizontal, the resulting sets of four letters transpose trans��posev.To transfer one tissue, organ, or part to the place of another. to soft shoe. In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke"put differently , TSF TSF Text Services FrameworkTSF TOE Security FunctionsTSF T��l��graphie Sans Fil (French: former term for radio)TSF Twelve Step Facilitation (counseling intervention)+O and EOH EOH Environmental & Occupational HealthEOH Engineering Open HouseEOH End of Hole (drill and bore holes)EOH Eye of Horus (gaming clan)EOH Equivalent Operating Hours +S = SOFT SHOE. And then ifyou add one diagonal to the verticals, and the other diagonal to thehorizontals, the resulting sets of four letters transpose to fits hero.In this case, TSF+I and EOH+R = FITS HERO. Now what that means is acompletely different question ... American State Names as Personal Names According to the editor, in the Rootsweb Review of Apr 13 2005 anobituary from the Hampshire Review of Romney, West Virginia Romney is a city in Hampshire County, West Virginia, United States of America. As of the 2000 census, the city and its environs population was 5,873 [1], 1,940 of which live within the city limits. It is the county seat of Hampshire CountyGR6. states:"Montana Crosen, 85, of Winchester, formerly of Cross Junction,died Wednesday March 9 2005 ... Mr Crosen was born November 6 1919 inFrederick county, the son of Utah and Rhode Island Rhode Island, island, United StatesRhode Island,island, 15 mi (24 km) long and 5 mi (8 km) wide, S R.I., at the entrance to Narragansett Bay. It is the largest island in the state, with steep cliffs and excellent beaches. (Place) Crosen ...Surviving is a brother, Kansas Crosen. Three brothers, Oklahoma Crosen,Georgia Crosen and Vermont Crosen, and five sisters, Virginia Mayes,Minnesota Bishop, Maryland Wingfield, Florida Sfitler and TennesseeHovermale, are deceased." Ross notes that Utah Crosen's familyis enumerated This term is often used in law as equivalent to mentioned specifically, designated, or expressly named or granted; as in speaking of enumerated governmental powers, items of property, or articles in a tariff schedule. in the 1930 Federal Census in Gainesborough, FrederickCounty, Virginia Frederick County is a county located in the U.S. state — officially, "Commonwealth" — of Virginia. It is included in the Winchester, Virginia-West Virginia Metropolitan Statistical Area. It was formed in 1743 by the splitting of Orange County. . A search of the 1930 census by given name revealednone for Massachusetts and only one each for Rhode Island andConnecticut, but many were called Texas, Indiana, Arizona, Kansas, Maineand Louisiana. Most were daughters, but Ohio and Vermont were mostlynames for sons. A Whale of a 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 I'm Parroting to my Friend Edweard (Ted) Murray of Hagatna, Guam wrote to Rich Lederer,punmaster of the English-speaking world, about an amazing pair of words:"After reading Treasure Island 50 years ago, then finishing offMoby Dick last week, a most amazing homonym hom��o��nym?n.1. One of two or more words that have the same sound and often the same spelling but differ in meaning, such as bank (embankment) and bank (place where money is kept).2. a. possessed me. Could there bea more outrageous pair of adjectives so oddly conjoined conjoined/con��joined/ (kon-joind��) joined together; united. conjoinedjoined together.conjoined monsterstwo deformed fetuses fused together. in [sound] anddisparity of creatures involved: cetaceous ce��ta��cean?n.Any of various aquatic, chiefly marine mammals of the order Cetacea, including the whales, dolphins, and porpoises, characterized by a nearly hairless body, anterior limbs modified into broad flippers, vestigial posterior limbs, and a (refers to whales anddolphins) and psittaceous (refers to parrots)?" Rich replies "My strong hunch is that you are the very firstperson on this planet to have noted this particular homophone. Pleasenote that I use the term homophone rather than homonym. I find thelatter term useless because nobody can agree about what it is. I'msharing your insight with a friend of mine who writes a column for WordWays." A Tip O' the Hat Regarding "At the Edge of Words" in the May Kickshaws, EdWolpow writes "Your next-to-last OFF should be DOFF doff?tr.v. doffed, doff��ing, doffs1. To take off; remove: doff one's clothes.2. To tip or remove (one's hat) in salutation.3. To put aside; discard. . But isDON/DOFF so puzzling after all? Dictionary derivation seems to be DO ON= DON and DO OFF = DOFF." I doff my hat to Ed. Next time I will donthe dictionary. "Where Is Your Blue-eyed Boy Now, Mr. Death?" The title of this Kickshaw is the last line of an ee cummings poembeginning "Buffalo Bill shot onetwothreefourfive clay pigeons justlike that ..." Is this the first time that a "Mr. Death"appears in print? Are there any other Mr. Deaths around? There are twoDr. Deaths, one being Dr. Jack Kevorkian and the other the ring name ofa professional wrestler. In both cases, they are nicknames. There is areal-life Death in the world today, and he's not one of the fourhorsemen of the Apocalypse Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse(əpŏk`əlĭps), allegorical figures in the Book of Revelation in the Bible. The rider on the white horse has many interpretations—one is that he represents Christ; the rider on the red horse is . Ove Michelsen sends the following newsarticle about what happens when Death breaks the law. The article inquestion is "Death Charged in Theft From Cemetery" byAssociated Press writer Frank Eltman. You can tell the writer enjoyedgiving the name Death a lot of the ironic play in the story. To beginwith, the first paragraph talks about Donald Death of Locust locust, in botanylocust,in botany, any species of the genus Robinia, deciduous trees or shrubs of the family Leguminosae (pulse family) native to the United States and Mexico. Valley,which recalls Longfellow's Charge of the Light Brigade Charge of the Light BrigadeRussians massacre English cavalry at Balaklava (1854). [Eur. Hist.: NCE, 212; Br. Lit.: Benét, 186]See : MassacreCharge of the Light Brigade : "Intothe Valley of Death rode the $300,000." But read on: NEW YORK--His name is Death, and prosecutors say he stole form acemetery. Donald Death, Jr., 60, of Locust Valley, was arraignedWednesday on charges he stole nearly $300,000 from the Locust ValleyCemetery association on Long Island. Death, who is the chairman andassistant treasurer of the cemetery association, pleaded not guilty totwo counts of second-degree grand larceny A category of larceny—the offense of illegally taking the property of another—in which the value of the property taken is greater than that set for petit larceny.At Common Law, the punishment for grand larceny was death. and one count of third-degreegrand larceny for allegedly using cemetery funds for his own purposes, aspokeswoman for Nassau county District Attorney Denis Dillon said in astatement. Death was released on his own recognizance own recognizance (O.R.)n. the basis for a judge allowing a person accused of a crime to be free while awaiting trial, without posting bail, on the defendant's own promise to appear and his/her reputation. and was orderedback to court April 6. If convicted he would face up to 15 years inprison. The charges follow an audit of the cemetery association that tookplace last summer. The audit found that Death wrote checks totaling$170,000 from the cemetery association's account to Harbor Fuel Co.Inc., at which Death served as president, CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. and 54 percentshareholder, Dillon said. The audit also found that Death used anassociation employee to provide landscaping and other work on propertieshe and his father owned and added a family member to theassociation's health and dental insurance plans, prosecutors said.The total amount of money diverted by Death was estimated at more than$293,000, Dillon said. Death's attorney, Melvin Roth, said the entire amount has beenrepaid to the association. He said he was "disappointed thedistrict attorney filed criminal charges, especially because everyoneconcerned has been made whole from this unfortunate incident." Hecalled Death an "upstanding member of the community who has servedon many boards and charities" and attributed the incident to"business pressures Mr. Death was experiencing." "Weanticipate a favorable conclusion," he said. Deathly death��ly?adj.1. Of, resembling, or characteristic of death: a deathly silence.2. Causing death; fatal.adv.1. In the manner of death.2. Fantasy Taking the Deathly story further, suppose Mr. Death had murderedsomeone, a victim named Miss Life. Here's the AP story that wouldfollow: "Last night, Mr. Death killed Miss Life, who was reading aLife Magazine on the bus. When Life departed from the bus, so did Death.Death stalked Life for two blocks to her house. He went inside with her,and that was where she met her death. Mr. Death took Life's lifethat night in her kitchen. An investigation into Life's deathrevealed that Life and Death were lovers, living together, but Life wasbecoming tired of Death and wanted to break up. That night Deaththreatened Life's life. Life tried leaving Death by taking the bus,but Death jumped on behind Life. "No!" said Death furiously,"if you leave me, you will meet your death before you get out thebus door!" Life raced out at the next stop and left Death in herdust, but Death quickly caught up with Life. "You're not goingto leave alive, Life." To prove his point, Death punched Life hardover and over. Life protested Death's deathly blows. Lifethreatened Death, but Death ignored Life's words and beat Life todeath in her home. Death's trial lasted six months. Death wantedlife in prison with a chance for parole, but the judge gave Death death.The prisoners became friends with Death. The guard told the otherprisoners that they will die soon after Death dies. Now the otherprisoners are scared to death of the death of Death on Death Row. Travel Office Tale Bill Brant brantor brant goose,common name for a species of wild sea goose. The American brant, Branta bernicla, breeds in the Arctic and winters along the Atlantic coast. tells of a recent trip to the local travel office:"I noticed that when the names of the travel office staff and theirclients are combined, they seem to tell a story about one client tryingto arrange a vacation trip." The travel office speaks first,followed by the client: Kenny Hillpue? Ivana C. DeWelt. Wanda C. Europe? Arthur Toors. V.F. Manny Manny may refer to:In nobility: Baron Manny, a title in the Peerage of England Walter de Manny, 1st Baron Manny (died 1372), soldier of fortune and founder of the Charterhouse People with the given name Manny: Manny (given name) . Connie C. DeBrosurs? Alma Gettum. Don Giovanni Moore. Bud F. Korse! Aloysius Sunshine. N. Sunny Skies? Anita Rekamendashoon. Anne D. Lucia? Agatha Goh. Winnie U. Gowin? Venus A. Goodtim? June S. DeBest. Emma Chisit? Manny Bucks. Viola Kost? Hugo Firstclass. Sarah Cheaperone? Donna C. Any. Ken I. Tinkaboutit? Ivan I. Dea. Hope S. Cheaper! April N. Paris. Ottis S. Goud! Ed B. Locust. Fitz Meewallet. Juan D. Full! Dewey Pacalot? Chester Cameron Philm. I Wanda Tinku. Obadiah M. Gladtahep. Blues For Whites Ove Michaelsen is a musician as well as wordplayer. He wrote meabout the difficulty of a white guy being taken seriously in playing theblues. ("Play that funky music, white boy!") Under my bluesypseudonym of Uptowndownlow, I tried to console Ove with this littlepoem: If you can't play the blues 'Cause you ain't paid your dues, Grab your balls, clubs, and jeans And you can play the greens. Reviews That We Wouldn't Like to See Ove sends the following list of reviews of his stagemanship. Arethey for real? Let's flash back to the eighties for a minute andremember these koans: "It's good to be bad" and"It's hip to be square." These reviews should be wornproudly as red badges of courage. He's been known to outnumber an entire audience (Open MicJournal) Man, can HE fill an empty chair! (Views and Reviews) He'sa dead ringer for Brad Pitt, minus the body and face (The Evening Rag)Guitarded (Fret Magazine) He's living proof that the stage is wherea performer can attend his own funeral (Cynics Cynics(sĭn`ĭks)[Gr.,=doglike, probably from their manners and their meeting place, the Cynosarges, an academy for Athenian youths], ancient school of philosophy founded c.440 B.C. by Antisthenes, a disciple of Socrates. Monthly) Wild Words Alexian Gregory assembled the following list of words that haveunique or near-unique spelling properties: QUINCUNX quin��cunx?n.An arrangement of five objects with one at each corner of a rectangle or square and one at the center.[Latin qu the only English word ending either in unx or cunx WELTANSCHAUUNG one of a few words with uu (others include vacuum,continuum, residuum That which remains after any process of separation or deduction; a balance; that which remains of a decedent's estate after debts have been paid and gifts deducted. , duumvirate du��um��vi��rate?n.1. Any of various two-man executive boards in the Roman Republic.2. A regime or partnership of two persons.duumvirate1. ; also see the August 1988 Kickshaws) STAR spelled backwards it's rats; spelled from the inside outright to left it's arts; spelled inside out left to right it'stsar (I know of no other word that can do this) NTH nth?adj.1. Relating to an unspecified ordinal number: ten to the nth power.2. Highest; utmost: delighted to the nth degree. the only word in modern English with not a single vowel(acronyms don't count) PHTHISIS phthisis/phthi��sis/ (thi��sis) (ti��sis) a wasting of the body. phthi��sisor phthis��icn.1. one of a very few words starting with four consonants HEADACHE, HEARTACHE the only words I know beginning and ending withhe STOMACHACHE stom��ach��achen.Pain in the stomach or abdomen.stomachacheVox populi Gastralgia the only word I know with the achach combination CHURCH the only word I know beginning and ending with ch Follow-Ups Rex Gooch sends these follow-ups to the May Kickshaws: The Rainbow Colors: Unless I've gone crazy, red is lowfrequency. By the way, indigo and violet as two separate colours haslong been contentious. Fraternity Names: Where you had Eta Bita Pie, I always knew theaccurate Eta Beta Pie--that's because we pronounce beta as"beeta" not "bayta". Your Sigma Phi Nothing actuallyreads Sigma Phi Omicron Sigma Phi Omicron Fraternity (also known as "Sigo" or ΣΦO), is a local all-male college social fraternity founded on the campus of University of Massachusetts - Lowell (formerly known as Lowell Technical College) and set up in 1964. , as you put an uppercase O rather than a zero(0). Wasted Wordplay "Two years ago," writes Ove, "I lost interest inonline chatting and wasted a lot of 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. on the nicknames ofregulars of the #30Plus channel on IRC's Efnet. Only a few of theanagrams were keepers. Among the wasted ones were ED--SOUTH CAROLINA(the resident chef of the channel) = HAND OUT CALORIES, and CAROLENA =AN ORACLE. One of the keepers was two women whose nicknames wereanagrams of each other: NICE GAL and ANGELIC. The lengths I've goneto amuse ... it's a crying shame." The Glory That Is eBay Have you heard of 'eBay pulse"? It's a listing ofeBay's top ten auctions in terms of how many people viewed them.It's funny to see which topics attract the most attention. Mysteryauctions like Buy My Fat Wallet and weird auctions like the BlessedVirgin Cheese Sandwich make up three or four of the top ten. Boringinvestment properties and even more boring farm equipment make up therest. Farm equipment? Yes, but don't ask me why twenty thousand ormore people would view a tractor described as "a good littlemachine." I've noticed a trend toward people concocting elaboratestories to go with what they are selling. It's becoming a folkliterature genre. Help Me Say Hello to My Daddy in Korea, What theRunaway Bride Really Did, I'm Back to Sell Da Ole Hag's Bag,and My Daughter Wants to Find the Tooth Fairy were on the auction blockthis past week. Classify these four in order of appearance as supercute, obsessively goofy, rabidly homicidal hom��i��cid��al?adj.1. Of or relating to homicide.2. Capable of or conducive to homicide: a homicidal rage. , and kee-razy. Actually, theysound like the titles of country 'n' western songs. Like them? Here are some more: The First Real Time Machine, TheBaseball That Started it All, The Popcorn Poodle poodle,popular breed of dog probably originating in Germany but generally associated with France, where it has been raised for centuries. There are three varieties, differing in size only. , The Million-DollarVault, The Car Hidden Under the Snow, and I Found the Runaway Bride onMy Toast. As you can see, the news story about Jennifer Wilbanks, thewoman who skipped out on her wedding, was a big hit on eBay. In fact,there were at least 140 auctions for different things related to theRunaway Bride, including five that involved toast! Those toast auctionsall had stories to go with them. Moving along, one of the most popular stories of all time so farwas an epic tale of cheating, My Sexy Wife's Out of Town andI'm Selling Her Stuff which went on for several auction listingsand attracted well over one hundred thousand onlookers. The guy milkedthat one for all he could. He called himself Reverend Robb, and his lastauction was for a signed photo of himself! His adventures inspired DaOle Hag stories mentioned above. The winner in the Most Unbelievable Category was a Good Samaritantale titled The Pants That Jesus Wore. You want a synopsis? Here is aninstant replay from memory. It was a cold winter's night, and astorm popped up, and Jesus appeared in this guy's house, and theguy could see that Jesus was cold, so he loaned the Savior a shirt, apair of pants In mathematics, a pair of pants is a simple two-dimensional surface resembling a pair of pants. In hyperbolic geometry, pairs of pants are sewn together, leg to leg, or leg to waist, to create Riemann surfaces of arbitrary genus. , and some grey underwear. After a few hours ofconversation, Jesus said he had to get going. Our Lord returned theshirt, pants and grey underway, and then left. The lucky guy kept thesacred clothing for about twenty years TWENTY YEARS. The lapse of twenty years raises a presumption of certain facts, and after such a time, the party against whom the presumption has been raised, will be required to prove a negative to establish his rights. 2. . Then God said "Let there beeBay" and next thing you know, a woman sold the Virgin Mary GrilledCheese Sandwich A grilled cheese sandwich, (also known as cheese toasty or toasted cheese sandwich) is a form of toasted sandwich that consists of two slices of bread and at least one slice of cheese melted in between. for $37,000, and another woman sold The Pope's Faceon a Chicken Breast for $140--a big drop in value from Savior to Pontiff(you can sure tell who's more popular on eBay). An on-line auctionhouse, Golden Saddle, has won many of these items, and has gotten onehundred times their value in the publicity they generated. Their auctionsite shows the Cheese Sandwich which now has over two million browsers!Those two miraculous auctions were enough to convince the guy with theclothes he loaned Jesus that the time had come to share his holywardrobe with the world, beginning with the pants. I assume he was goingto have two more auctions, one for the shirt and the other for theunderwear, but we'll never know. eBay cut the first auction--nopants auction--effectively ending the seller's religious fervor. Orperhaps the poor fellow was struck dead by a lightning bolt. That wouldbe more dramatic and more in keeping with the spirit of eBay. The Minnesota-Sitomanee Problem "While browsing the Internet recently," Darryl Franciswrites, "I came across the name SITOMANEE. This was the name of avillage in Kurtz Township, Minnesota Kurtz Township is a township in Clay County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 288 at the 2000 census. GeographyAccording to the United States Census Bureau, the township has a total area of 84.0 km2 (32.5 mi2), all land. , which was incorporated on May 23,1857; no trace remains. What makes SITOMANEE so interesting is that ituses all the different letters of its state name, AEIMNOST, and itdiffers from MINNESOTA by only one letter, two E's instead of twoN's, making it a substitute-letter transposition transposition/trans��po��si��tion/ (trans?po-zish��un)1. displacement of a viscus to the opposite side.2. . Are Word Waysreaders able to find any comparable town names in other states?" Darryl followed up his original discussion with several variationson the theme. "I guess there's various strands to theMINNESOTA-SITOMANEE problem. The two themes of a common letter pool andsubstitute-letter transposition works because MINNESOTA has a second N,allowing it to be changed to one of the other letters (E) in the letterpool. You can't do the same trick with state names that don'trepeat letters. For example, consider MAINE. To do a substitute-lettertransposition, you've got to drop one of the unique letters, andthe result (whatever it is) no longer shares the same letter pool (MAINEhas MINCE as a substitute-letter transposition, but the words no longershare the same letter pool). Of course, you can look for words longerthan MAINE that share the letter pool (for example, ANAEMIA anaemiasee anemia. or MANIEREin Webster's Second), but these are no longer substitute-lettertranspos. "But where there's one or more repeat letters, you canattempt to replicate the trick. For example, in NEVADA you can drop oneof the duplicate A's and replace it with any of N, V, E or D (forexample, EVADNE, VANNED). But these six-letter examples look pretty weakalongside MINNESOTA-SITOMANEE. "TENNESSEE-TENSENESS works. From TENNESSEE, drop the fourth E,add another S, and rearrange to get TENSENESS, the same length asMINNESOTA-SITOMANEE. Any other examples? Try WISCONSIN-WICONISCO. Thelatter is a place in Pennsylvania. Any longer examples, I can'tfind any." 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. For the Two Sides of Romance EVILDOER e��vil��do��er?n.One that performs evil acts.evil��doing n. = I LOVED 'ER. New Film Louis Phillips writes "I am working on a new film, Dr. Jekylland Dr. Jekyll. A scientist drinks a dangerous potion po��tionn.A liquid medicinal dose or drink.potiona large dose of liquid medicine. but it has noeffect on him whatsoever." Lower-Upper Case Letters The cow is a farm animal whose name is spelled with letters thatlook the same in lowercase and uppercase in the singular--cow andCOW--and in the plural--cows and COWS. The castrated cas��trate?tr.v. cas��trat��ed, cas��trat��ing, cas��trates1. To remove the testicles of (a male); geld or emasculate.2. To remove the ovaries of (a female); spay.3. male of the samespecies has a name that works the same way in the singular only--ox andOX. Another farm animal with names that work that way is a sow and SOW,pluralizing to sows and SOWS. In a zoo, the first thing that stands outis that zoo and ZOO look the same. Birds coo and CO0 in the ZOO. Whatother words don't change their looks in a major way from lower touppercase? Some people might like to let Pp in this exclusive club ofshapes. This would be a fine addition, but in lower case it goes belowthe line. COPS and cops have letters looking the same, but the p makesthe words look different. Others might suggest Uu, but the bottom rightof the small u has a serif Short horizontal lines added to the tops and bottoms of traditional typefaces, such as Times Roman. Contrast with sans-serif. on it that the big U doesn't have.Still, that is nit-picking. They look so alike that they are admittedinto the lower-upper case club. CUSS and cuss look alike. Another letteris Kk. The lowercase k has an uppercase back line; sock has the kextending above the rest of the word, but SOCK does not. Like COP andcop, these two must be viewed with a grain of salt. COPY and copy showanother problem--the curving shape of the lowercase y doesn't matchthe sturdy straight shape of the uppercase Y. The ghostly word SPOOKY inlowercase shows the three flawed letters: spooky. The best lower-upperletters are cosuvwxz. What are the longest words using only lower-upperletters? COUSCOUS cous��cous?n.1. A pasta of North African origin made of crushed and steamed semolina.2. A North African dish consisting of pasta steamed with a meat and vegetable stew. , a North African dish of steamed semolina, looks justlike itself in lowercase: couscous. Its 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 can be traced back tothe eleven-letter COUSCOUSSOU, matching couscoussou. These words aremade of curved letters exclusively. One + Twelve = Eleven + Two Revisited Anil gives us a heartbreaking revelation about this well-knownanagram: "My opinion of this anagram as the most perfect of allEnglish anagrams suffered a bit of a setback when I finally got aroundto checking out the etymologies. Alas, they're as thick as thieves!Likewise, and not surprisingly, two and twelve as well as one and elevenhave the same roots. Don't you just hate it when a beautifulfantasy is tarnished? But not shattered--it's still an incrediblygood and surprising anagram. Nor does this imperfection im��per��fec��tion?n.1. The quality or condition of being imperfect.2. Something imperfect; a defect or flaw. See Synonyms at blemish.imperfectionNoun1. diminish themany other coincidences I found for the equation (see my articles in Nov2002 and August 2004)." Some Self-Defining Glyph A displayed or printed image. In typography, a glyph may be a single letter, an accent mark or a ligature. See grapheme. (character) glyph - An image used in the visual representation of characters; roughly speaking, how a character looks. A font is a set of glyphs. Words: #as#, st*r, s/ash "Similarly, but naughtily," says Anil in a wonderfullyappropriate observation, "BOOB is a triply (or sex-tuply)self-depicting word--a frontal view flanked by two Dolly Parton par��ton?n.Any of the point particles believed to be a constituent of hadrons, now known as quarks. No longer in technical use.[part(icle) + -on1.] topviews." Now that's hot! Synonym Musings Anil poses the logological question "WHIP and LASH aresynonyms, yet WHIPLASH whiplashn. a common neck and/or back injury suffered in automobile accidents (particularly from being hit from the rear) in which the head and/or upper back is snapped back and forth suddenly and violently by the impact. is not. Any others?" He proposes "an exercise in turning a word into its oppositevia a chain of synonyms: brilliance = resemblance to the brill (aflatfish flatfish,common name for any member of the unique and widespread order Pleuronectiformes containing over 500 species (including the flounder, halibut, plaice, sole, and turbot), 130 of which are American. ) = flatness = dullness." And he found this amazing physiological twist. "And a first(and last?) example of a similar form employing chains of synonyms toturn non-synonymic anagrams into synonyms: spine = thorn = prick =penis. It was a lucky coincidence, not a requirement, that all fourwords were of the same length." Poet Tree Without Mist Aches Judith Bridges sends the following poem that appeared anonymouslyon the internet. Its title above indicates the computer-wise languageyou are about to read: I have a spelling chequer It came with my pea sea. It plainly marks for my revue Miss steaks I cannot sea. Each thyme when eye have struck the quays I weight for it to say If watt I rote is wrong or rite. It shows me strait a weigh. As soon as a mist ache is made It nose bee fore two late So eye can make the error rite End I shall see--its grate! I've run this poem threw it, I'm sure yore policed two no. Its letter perfect in its weigh: My chequer tolled me sew. Giving More than 100 Per Cent Here is a terrific little math exercise provided by Judith. Whenletters and numbers do the meaning dance, interesting secrets pop up tothe surface. What makes 100%? What does it mean to give more than 100%?If A=I, B=2, ... Z=26, HARD WORK is 98%, KNOWLEDGE is 96%, and ATTITUDEis 100%, but BULLSHIT is 130%, and look how far ASS KISSING will takeyou--118%! Eighthly Spelled with eight letters, EIGHTHLY is the only truthful adverbial ad��ver��bi��al?adj.Of, relating to, or being an adverb.n.An adverbial element or phrase.ad��verbi��al��ly adv. number. Dividing 8 by 2 gives the four-letter FOUR, the only truthfulcardinal (noun number). FOURTHLY Fourth´lyadv. 1. In the fourth place.Adv. 1. fourthly - in the fourth place; "fourthly, you must pay the rent on the first of the month"fourth , however, has the same number ofletters as EIGHTHLY. Adding 8+4 gives 12, the only truthful Scrabblenumber. Adding 5+7 gives 12; FIFTH and SEVENTH are the only two truthfuladjectival ad��jec��ti��val?adj.Of, relating to, or functioning as an adjective.adjec��ti numbers. Autumn is in the Air My favorite month has always been autumn. It is the only seasonwith another name, FALL. AUTUMN does many things that the other seasonnames don't do. It begins with a vowel that is pronounced and endswith a consonant that isn't. It has two pairs of letters that occurnext to each other in the alphabet and in the word--TU and MN. It has apalindromic pal��in��dro��micadj.Relapsing; recurring. set of letters--UTU.It has a different letter in common witheach the other season names--fAll, sUmmer, winTer, and spring, but FALLhas a letter in common only with Autumn. Ironically, AUTUMN rhymes withno other word, but FALL rhymes with ALL. However, I like the seasonbecause of the sights, smells, sounds, and unpredictable whether thatgrows more ominous as winter approaches. Scrabble Challenge Can you find a word that uses all the letters in Scrabble that havea value of one? Naturally, using the letters once and only once is evenbetter. On the other hand, it would be interesting to see the longestword that uses only those letters as many times as possible. The wordULTRANOISE (synonym for ULTRASOUND) uses the ten one-tiles once apiece.But is it a real word? A Close Look at Eye-Rhymes Sir Jeremy Morse writes "I was delighted to see theLederer/McKenty/Gregory article on eye-rhymes in this month's WordWays. Pronunciation differs from time to time and place to place, butits oddities should be of no less interest to the logologist than thoseof orthography. Comparing their six rules to poetic practice, I find thefirst to be too restrictive (they break it themselves by rhyming THROUGHwith TROUGH) and the third and sixth too lax (nobody would seriouslyrhyme BEAT with WHEREAT where��at?conj.1. Toward or at which.2. As a result or consequence of; whereupon. or ICY with POLICY. "That said, they give a fine range of other examples, whichcould be analysed according to whether it is the vowel(s) or followingconsonant(s) that differ in pronunciation. Thus, HONE-DONE-GONE showstwo vocalic vo��cal��ic?adj.1. Containing, marked by, or consisting of vowels.2. Of, relating to, or having the nature of a vowel.vo��cal changes, as does BEAT-GREAT-SWEAT with a diphthong diph��thong?n.A complex speech sound or glide that begins with one vowel and gradually changes to another vowel within the same syllable, as (oi) in boil or () in fine. ;FINGER-GINGER-RINGER would show two consonantal con��so��nan��tal?adj.1. Of, relating to, or having the nature of a consonant.2. Containing a consonant or consonants.con changes, andROSE-DOSE-LOSE shows one of each. Broadening the rules, they add APLOMB a��plomb?n.Self-confident assurance; poise. See Synonyms at confidence.[French, from Old French a plomb, perpendicularly : a, according to (from Latin ad-; see (pronounced in various ways including the French) to the conventionaltrio of COMB-BOMB-TOMB. They could also have added RHOMB, in which thefinal B is sometimes sounded. On the same broader basis, the ending-OUGH, which they describe as the champion with nine soundings, canfairly claim eleven or twelve: BOUGH (ow), DOUGH (o), THROUGH (oo),BOROUGH (uh), HOUGH n. 1. Same as Hock, a joint.v. t. 1. Same as Hock, to hamstring.[imp. & p. p. os> Houghedr>;p. pr. & vb. n. os> Houghing.]n. 1. An adz; a hoe.v. t. 1. To cut with a hoe. (hamstring, ock), LOUGH Lough(lŏkh, lŏk). For names of Irish lakes and inlets beginning with "Lough," see second part of element; e.g., for Lough Corrib, see Corrib, Lough. See lake. (och), SHOUGH (a breed ofdog cited in Macbeth, og), COUGH (off), ROUGH (uff), WOUGH (oof) andHICCOUGH hiccup, hiccoughspasmodic involuntary contraction of the diaphragm that results in uncontrolled breathing in of air; called also singultus. The peculiar noise of hiccups is produced by a beginning inspiration that is suddenly checked by closure of the glottis. (up). Some holders of the surname HOUGH pronounce it (or), asin mid-word BOUGHT. Around Milton Keynes in England are the threevillages LOUGHTON (ow), BROUGHTON (or) and WOUGHTON (oof)." Pig Latin in the Movies Here are four movies that briefly use Pig Latin in the dialog, anda fifth that uses a different spoken language code. The names of themovies appear in italics; do you know of others? 1941, a movie about World War 2. John Belushi, a pilot, says to hisAir Force buddies as he hops into his plane, "We're eady-rayto oil-ray." Fear and Loathing fear and loathing - (Hunter S. Thompson) A state inspired by the prospect of dealing with certain real-world systems and standards that are totally brain-damaged but ubiquitous - Intel 8086s, COBOL, EBCDIC, or any IBM machine except the Rios (also known as the RS/6000). in Las Vegas, a movie about the drug-and-driveexperiences of Hunter Thomson. At one point, Hunter says, "So whydon't, uh, ou-yay and I-ay o-gay and, uh, et-gay the uff-stay outof the unk-tray." (These Pig Latin words appear in the Englishsubtitles which shows the intended spelling.) Young Dr. Frankenstein, a comedy in which a descendant ofFrankenstein goes back to find the monster. He meets a modern Igor, whoasks that his name be pronounced "Eye-Gore." As they'regetting the proper brain, the only good jar breaks. So young Dr.Frankenstein picks up the rotten brain. Later, Dr. Frankenstein tellsthe monster that the monster has a rotten brain. The monster growls, andIgor warns Dr. Frankenstein in Pig Latin, "Ix-nay on theotten-ray." The movie in which the following Pig Latin appeared was a teenflick. The name of the movie has faded, along with the movie itself, butthe words ring on loud and clear: "Itch-bay alert!" The Pest, starring John Leguizamo, used a different code languagebased on adding a B in the middle of the first vowel: PARENTS becomePA-BARENTS. In the dialogue that uses this, the characters speak itquickly and naturally as if it were their first language: Other Guy: Hi-bis pa-baerents a-bare go-bone. Pest: so-bo. Other Guy: Poo-bool pa-barty! Pest: We-bell, why-by di-bidn't you-bou sa-bay so-bo,fre-beak? Everywoman She is defined as "the typical or ordinary woman." Thefirst three letters spell EVE, the Biblical first woman. Since she wasfirst, she was automatically "the typical or ordinary woman."She is the mother of EVERYMAN, who begins with EVE, too. Yet Another Millennium Name In the August 2004 Kickshaws I suggested seven synonyms for themillennium year, such as Chiliad, Decadecadecade and Kiloyear, and inthe November Kickshaws Anil added sixteen more. With tongue in cheek hepoints out that there is also a way of expressing it Mannually (withspelling license). That Daring Young Man and His Writing Machine In St. Louis in the 1960s, a hippy poet wanted to write an epicpoem with a constraint that beats the E's out of the restraint inGadsby, in which the typewriter's e-key was taped down to preventaccidental usage. The hippy poet wanted to figure out a way to enablehimself to type while lying flat on his back. To achieve his recliningdream, he nailed a manual typewriter upside down to the ceiling abovehis bed. He found a long roll of paper that measured about ten incheswide (not adding machine tape) and using coat hangers nailed to the wall nailed to the wall - [like a trophy] Said of a bug finally eliminated after protracted, and even heroic, effort. he arranged the roll so it went up the wall, across the ceiling, intothe typewriter carriage, and out to a holding area made of more coathangers for the completed work. Then, using a long pole that reachedfrom bed to ceiling, he commenced to write his epic. It was a slowprocess, but he didn't care--he only wrote when he was stoned. Whenhe typed a capital letter, he had to first press the caps lock key A keyboard key that toggles upper case on and off. When on, pressing any key automatically delivers the shifted version of the key, except for numeric digits, periods, commas, slashes and backslashes. , thentype the letter, and then the caps lock key again to return to lowercase. Even more difficult was the normally simple movement of going downto the next line, which probably involved improving his skill atmanipulating a pole. I never saw the contraption, but a friend told meabout it and said that he had seen it. This was in the days when St.Louis had a hippy area called Gaslight Square, which had a lot of wildthings going on. Whether this legendary hippy with the upside-downtypewriter really existed or not is uncertain. However, if he did exist,it's a tribute to the human spirit that he could come up with sucha Rube Goldberg device to write upside-down, and if he didn'texist, it's a tribute to the human spirit that someone could makeup a poet who created such a writing device. His story has inspired meall my life to try writing in many different ways, but I've nevercome up with anything to equal his fantastically fantastic achievement.I have always admired that daring young inventor and his wonderfulwriting machine! Language on Vacation The editor offers for sale a used copy of Dmitri Borgmann'slandmark book on logology for $12 postpaid (check beforehand by e-mailto see if it has been sold). DAVE A file sharing program from Thursby Software Systems, Inc., Arlington, TX (www.thursby.com) that allows a Macintosh to share files with a PC. Designed specifically for and needing installation only on the Mac, DAVE works with Microsoft's native SMB/CIFS file sharing protocols and uses MORICE Iowa City, Iowa Iowa City is a city in Johnson County, Iowa, United States. It is the principal city of the Iowa City, Iowa Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses Johnson and Washington counties.