All End-Letters Different in a Poem

In the July 22, 1972 New Yorker magazine there appeared the following sonnet by George Starbuck..

Alphabetical Circumambulations

I recently ran across the following generation-gap misunderstanding in a column written by Earl Wilson

Rebus Poetry

Rebuses have been around for a long time. Most of them exploit letters only; some contain both letters and numbers; but relatively few use letters, numbers, and other typewriter symbols. If the reader will keep in mind that two identical letters, such as EE, can be pronounced either ease or e-e , the following poem should not be too difficult to decode

Kickshaws

A collection of linguistic kickshaws assembled by a guest editor

A Plurality of Singular Verse

In the November 1973 Word Ways, Will Shortz quoted George Canning\u27s famous eighteenth-century conundrum involving the words cares and caress. There are many other words exhibiting this property, as the following verse suggests

An Acrogemalic Apologia

The conventional journalistic wisdom anathematizes any mouthful of a word like anathematizes. Write clearly, write crisply, say the commandments; be positive, not negative; active, not passive; concise, not prolix. Never use two syllables where one will do

Omak Me Yours Tonight

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

Calendar Acrostics

The February 1969 issue of Word Ways quoted a very old acrostic poem of twelve lines in which each word at the beginning of a line started off with the abbreviation of a month

Espyramids and Doublets

The following puzzles are excerpted from a book entitled Word Puzzles to be published by Dembner Enterprises in September 1983. In an ESPYramid Up one enlarges a one-letter word letter by letter, each addition making a new word, rearranging the letters as need dictates (a-at-tea-mate-steam-master...). The ESPYramid Down reverses this process, subtracting letters one at a time and rearranging the remainder. In Doublets , inspired by the Lewis Carroll word game, a word is gradually changed into another of opposite meaning by replacing one letter at a time, the rest remaining undisturbed and each move resulting in a new word (suite-spite-spine-swine-swing-swung-stung...)

The Venereal Game

The adjective venereal is defined in dictionaries as pertaining to sexual intercourse, but the associated noun, venery, relates either to coital activity or to the hunting of game. Although Venus pursued her prey indiscriminately in bower or bosky dell, in the venereal game only the bosky dell is involved. James Lipton\u27s An Exaltation of Larks lists scores of venereal terms, relics of mediaeval times. Some -- a school of fish, a pride of lions -- are still in general use; others -- a skulk of foxes, a barren of mules -- are still used by specialists; still others have vanished from the general ken. Mr. Lipton goes on to conjure up his own collectives, such as an unction of undertakers, a float of dancers, a dilation of pupils, and a wince of dentists. This is a game open to all. It is played with gusto on Mary Ann Madden\u27s competition page in New York Magazine