A New Look at the Jotto Problem

The so-called Jotto problem--construct five five-letter words out of 25 different letters--was examined in the first issue of Word Ways on February 1968. Why is it called this? If one\u27s guess word in the two-person game of Jotto is scored 0 (no letters in common with the target word), one\u27s next guess should be a word containing no letters in common with the first one

The OED Supplement (A-G, H-N)

The history of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) goes back to 1857 when the then Dean of Westminster, by calling attention to deficiencies of existing English dictionaries, encouraged the Philological Society to make plans for the compilation of a new English dictionary. These culminated after an experimental period of some 20 years in the launching of the great project to produce A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, as the OED was originally called

Colloquy

Webster\u27s Dictionary defines colloquy as mutual discourse. Readers are encouraged to submit additions, corrections and comments about earlier articles appearing in Word Ways. Comments received up to a month prior to publication of an issue will appear in that issue

Feeding the rural tourism strategy? Food and notions of place and identity

The humble rural cuisine has now been thrust at the forefront of economic development strategies. This conceptual paper is a contribution to a growing critical awareness of the operations of the food industry and helps to foster a critical understanding of how, if at all, local food and its associated culture can help sustain rural tourism particularly and rural communities generally. It is inspired by literature about the international political economy of food and the many experiences of local food development, and is aware of the contrast between the structure of the industry and the hopes associated with its practice on the ground. The paper thus argues that, beyond the glamour and hype, there are those who gain, as well as those who lose, from the current food fad. While it explains the causes of the contemporary craze with food, the paper also interrogates the naı¨ve expectations often placed in food as a motor of rural development, and as the panacea for struggling rural communities. The empirical data on which this chapter is based are drawn from 18 short chapters explaining the history of various “traditional dishes” from the islands of the broad North Atlantic that feature in a recent food publication.peer-reviewe

The Potato in Irish Cuisine and Culture

This article will discuss the introduction of the potato from its South American origin into Irish cuisine and culture. The authors will outline the stages of devopment from introduction to acceptance as a winter vegetable, to widespread acceptance, moving on to overdependence and leading to subsequent famine. The article will discuss the varieties of potatoes used, the methods of production at different levels of society, and a number of quintessentially Irish potato dishes including boxty, champ, and colcannon, which will be compared with similar potato dishes in other cultures

Stone Picking

The frost of the spring morning was biting my fingers as I listened to the VW Beetle trundling off back down the boreen, in third gear..