Hey, Look What I Can Do

Take a word like FLING, add the letter I, and you have filing. Described below are other word-pairs in which one becomes the other merely by the addition of I. Answers are found in Answers and Solutions at the end of this issue

Terse Verse (And Worse)

In the February 1970 Kickshaws, Dave Silverman introduced the concept of Spoonerhyme -- short doggerel poetry in the form ILL WIT. / WILL IT / DIE OUT? / I DOUBT. Construction of these verses is as habit forming as eating salted peanuts (but fortunately a good deal less fattening)

Two Superb 144-Letter Word Squares

When I read Dmitri Borgmann\u27s article on 100-letter tautonymic word squares in the November 1973 Word Ways, it was with elation (amidst some rather queasy emotions) that I realized word had taken on a new meaning. Now that multiple-word phrases have been accepted as words , the building of tautonymic word squares is child\u27s play. Hence, with childish delight I set about to whip up a couple of examples

In-Famous Classics

How good are you at recognizing famous works of literature, music or movies from their plots? The plots sketched in the following paragraphs should give you enough clues to fill in the blanks with the name of each work, thus completing the sketch

Alphabet Soup

A few weeks ago I accidentally ran into an old friend, a logophilic gourmet by the name of Ambrose Ziegfield. Hadn\u27t seen Old Ziggy in ages, and I wondered what he was up to. He excitedly told me of his new venture -- he was about to open a restaurant exclusively for word-loving gluttons. His excitement was contagious: I drooled at the thought of combining two favorite pastimes, words and eating. The A-Z Diner (he rejected my suggested name of Ziegfield\u27s Folly) would open soon, he said, and he gave me a quick run-down of the plans

Anything I Can Do, U Can Do Too

Take a word like POT, add the letter U, and you have POUT. Described below are other word-pairs in which one becomes the other merely by the addition of U. Answers are found in the Answers and Solutions at the end of this issue

A Literary Word Chain

The November 1970 issue of Word Ways challenged readers to write articles in which the last letter of each word was echoed by the first letter of the next word. A recent blizzard inspired the following poetical word chain

Occupational Avoidance

Readers of John Fuller\u27s Games For Insomniacs (Doubleday, 1966) may recall the chapter on Occupational Hazards, which gives a compendium of ways people get fired from their occupations (orchestra leaders are disbanded, electricians are discharged, postmen are unzipped, and so on). More recently, readers of Herb Caen\u27s column in the San Francisco Chronicle have been playing the analogous game of I Could Have Been (a telephone operator but I had a bad hang-up, a mountaineer but I wasn\u27t so inclined). Next time your mother-in-law asks you why you can\u27t hold down a steady job, you can give her one of the following snappy comebacks

Old Wine in New Bottles

The following abstracts from the Journal de la Mere Oye are translations from the original into language more readily understood by those well-versed in the art. Some readers may have made an early encounter of these abstracts in the original form, but the scientific principles involved were probably not entirely elucidated

Hidden Opposites

A list of fifty short phrases is given below. In each phrase there are two hidden words which are opposites, or complements, of each other. For example, KITE GAVE can be rearranged to GIVE-TAKE. Answers can be found in Answers and Solutions at the end of this issue