More Basic Questions of Linguistics

In the spring of 1970, the Cornell linguistics faculty prepared a list of basic questions that graduate students could use as a guide for reading and study. Finding it incomplete, Prof. Charles Elliott prepared the following supplementary list

Thematic Knight\u27s Tour Quotes

Knight\u27s Tour Quotes (KTQs), also called Knight\u27s Tour Crypts, are a word puzzle enjoying a new vogue in the National Puzzlers\u27 League since David Silverman reintroduced them in 1973. Dmitri Borgmann presented some examples in Chesswords in the May 1974 Word Ways. A KTQ is a quote written out along a knight\u27s tour. It is a form, usually rectangular, with each square containing a single letter or punctuation mark. Stepping from letter to letter by knight\u27s moves (two squares horizontally or vertically, then one square perpendicular to that), visiting all letters once, one can spell out a message. To reduce the task from drudgery to pleasure, the starting letter is underlined and the word lengths and punctuation of the message are given

What\u27s the Good Word?

What is an acceptable word? has been the topic of a number of Word Ways articles. Answers range from a Pocket Dictionary main entry (for certain problems) to anything remotely wordlike (see The Ultimate Adventure elsewhere in this issue). I think, however, that it makes more sense to change the question to what is acceptability? noting that (1) words vary in acceptability, (2) the unacceptability line will be drawn at different points in the continuum by different people, or for different problems, and (3) a word\u27s acceptability has at least two dimensions, centrality and reliability, which depend strongly on its source. Clearly defined scales of acceptability will not resolve the question, since people will disagree on the importance of this factor or that, but they should at least clarify discussions of the problem

Japlish Riddles

A couple of years ago, a craze for riddles swept Japan; this inspired an article by James Bailey in the August 22, 1975 issue of Tokyo Weekender, which A. Martin Cohen passed along to me. Many examples in the article are bilingual, or at least involve English loan-words

Vowel-Consonant Patterns

In his article Seven-Letter Words in the August 1968 Word Ways, Dmitri Borgmann tackled the problem of finding seven-letter words containing an excess of vowels or consonants

Language of Science Fiction Fandom

Science fiction fandom, in the broad sense, is made up of those people who are interested in science fiction (SF) or fantasy. In a narrower sense, it is the amorphous group of those who do something because of that interest: attend SF conventions, correspond with other fans, publish or collect fanzines. Fandom in the narrow sense -- the Microcosm -- has developed its own vocabulary, like any in-group, and this particularly rich jargon is the subject of this article

Palmer Peterson, Master Formist

The following article is my abridgement of one written as a National Puzzlers\u27 League memorial to Palmer Peterson, who died in June 1979 at the age of 77. Few present-day word buffs are aware of the enormous work that went into the construction of giant forms in the late 1800s and early 1900s. One of the precursors of the crossword puzzle, forms are mini-crosswords of regular shape with no black squares

Speech Play

In the August 1976 Kickshaws, I claimed that linguistics and logology have little in common. Having just read Speech Play, edited by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1976), I take it back. Although the ten papers in this book are linguistic in style rather than logological, a few are sufficiently nontechnical that they should interest Word Ways readers

On The Inter(e)state

Three Word Ways articles have been written by Dmitri Borgmann (February and May 1977) and Pamela Brang (August 1977) to support the proposition that \u27all words are interesting\u27 from a logological standpoint. As noted in the May and August Colloquies, the results left something to be desired. For example, Borgmann\u27s efforts included two transposals and a substitute-letter transposal to nonexistent words or names; a reference to a \u27dictionary combination\u27 (a sequence of words occurring somewhere in the text of a dictionary, no more worth mention than any sequence from any other text); and a reference to a different word (\u27subcontinent\u27 was identified as the noun base of \u27subcontinental\u27 which is interesting because it contains AEIOU in reverse order, but isn\u27t the object to find a property of \u27subcontinent\u27 itself?)

Kickshaws

A collection of linguistic kickshaws assembled by a guest editor