Special Words

In two recent articles in this journal, Susan Thorpe identifies schwa as the phonetic symbol of English which can be represented by the most letters of the alphabet

Semi-Pseudo-Plurals and Semi-Quasi-Pseudo-Plurals

A recent perusal of Webster\u27s Third New International Dictionary has uncovered a number of pseudo-plurals and quasi-pseudo-plurals that were not included in my article in the last issue of this journal. These new examples are listed in Figure 1 and Figure 2 respectively

The Alphanumeric Properties of Hyperpolygraphemic Oligosyllables

In a recent article in this journal (Word Ways, August 2003), Hugo Brandt Corstius examines the connection between the number of letters in a word and the number of syllables it contains. Basing his observations on Dutch, he coins the term \u27oligosyllabic\u27, which he defines as a word in which the number of letters is more than four times greater than the number of its syllables

Tripartitle Numerical Tautonyms

A numerical tautonym is traditionally defined as a word which can be divided into a sequence of at least two (adjacent) parts, where each part has both the same number of letters as well as the same alphabetic value sum (see David Morice, The Dictionary of Wordplay). For example, the four letters in the word THIS can be transposed into the corresponding numbers 20-8-9-19 (where A = 1, B = 2...Z = 26), which can be divided in the two parts 20-8 and 9-19. If the numbers in the first part are added together, then we obtain 28, which is precisely the sum of the two numbers in the second part. Note that the two-part numerical tautonym THIS is \u27balanced\u27 in two respects: The numerical value of each of the two parts is identical, as is the number of letters in each part

Derived Palindromes Three Months Later

An expansion on the subject of derived palindromes, this time looking at moving a part of a letter at one edge to a letter on the opposite edge

Not All One-letter Words Are Palindromes

Virtually any discussion of palindromes - regardless of the source - reveals a complete lack of interest in small words. In particular, one will rarely encounter a list of one-letter palindromes, presumably because that type of word should be palindromic by any definition. While this is clearly the case for the most common, garden-variety examples (e.g. A, I, O etc.) the naive view will have us believe that one-letter words with an adjacent apostrophe -typically contracted words in English - should be palindromes as well

On the Distinction Between Phonetic Palindromes and Phonetically Reversible Words

1. Defining three types of words By definition, a palindrome is a word, phrase or sentence that reads the same in the reverse direction as in the forward one. Simple examples of four letter English palindromes include SEES and DEED, but a moment\u27s reflection reveals there is a fundamental difference between these two words

Derived Palindromes

The purpose of this article is to present a relatively small set of examples illustrating the three types of derived palindromes

Internal Palindromes and Regular Inflection

An internal palindrome can be observed in a word like DAWNWARD, in which the five letter palindromic sequence AWNWA is embedded within an occurring word