Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Words With No Graphemic Throwbacks?

Today I pulled from my jacket pocket a scrap of paper with a list of words. I don't really remember why I compiled the list, but it seems I was collecting words in which no letter is repeated. The longest examples I found have 11 unique letters:

9-letters: depravity, operating, spherical
10-letters: epistolary, graciously, impersonal, importance, judgmental, sublimated
11-letters: facetiously, fractiously, personality

Friday, April 4, 2008

(TMBG) I Palindrome I (GBMT?)

Some well-known palindromes:

Madam, I'm Adam.
Able was I ere I saw Elba.
A man, a plan, a canal: Panama.



A few of my own devising (not all of which make any sense):

A BERYL TREVOR OVERTLY REBA
EEL FOR OVERT TREVOR OF LEE
S.N. RUFO STOLE LOTS OF URNS.
"HARASS LIARS!" RAILS SARAH.
DALY: "MEG, NEVER REVENGE MY LAD."
O, MY BABY MO! or AI! MY BABY MIA!
ERIS EDWARDS, DRAW "DESIRE."
DOC. ASTA, EDNA ELBA TASTES REGAL LAGER, SETS A TABLE, AND EATS A COD.

Another, which has multiple variations:

EVE WENT: "I SAW PAM'S MAP." -- "WAS IT NEW, EVE?"
Here, EVE may be replaced with HANNAH, DAD, ANNA, HE/EH ("WAS IT NEW? EH?"), &c.
Also, PAM'S MAP may be replaced with ELBA'S SABLE, MUM'S MUM, GOD'S DOG, LIAM'S MAIL, A RAM, MARA, &c.
(e.g., HANNAH WENT: "I SAW A RAM, MARA." -- "WAS IT NEW, HANNAH?")




Some palindromic word pairs:

BRO'S ORB, DOCK COD, DROLL LORD, ERROL LORRE, GNUS SUNG, LLAMA MALL, NEW WEN, POT'S TOP, PUT UP, RAT STAR, REGINA NIGER, SETON NOTES, SNUG GUNS, STORY ROTS, TANGY GNATS


And some single-word palindromes (including names, affixes, initialisms, contractions, and interjections):

3-letter: ADA, AGA, AHA, A.K.A., ANA, AVA, BIB, BOB, BUB, DAD, DID, DUD, EKE, -ENE, ERE, -ESE, ETE, EVE , EWE, EYE, GAG, GIG, HAH, HEH, H.O.H., HUH, ICI, LIL, L.O.L., MIM, MOM, MUM, NAN, N.I.N., NON-, NUN, OHO, ORO, PAP, PEP, PIP, POP, PUP, SIS, S.O.S., TAT, TET, TIT, TOT, TUT, VIV, WOW, YAY

4-letter: ABBA, ANNA, BOOB, DEED, ECCE, ELLE, ESSE, -ETTE, KOOK, MA'AM, NOON, OTTO, PEEP, POOP, SEES, SUUS, TOOT

5-letter: MADAM, RADAR

6-letter: HANNAH, REDDER

7-letter: RACECAR, REVIVER




And finally, some links:

http://www.rinkworks.com/words/palindromes.shtml
http://www.palindromelist.com/
http://thinks.com/words/palindromes.htm
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Palindromic_words
http://www.fun-with-words.com/palindromes.html

Thursday, April 3, 2008

A werewolf by any other name...

Nearly all of the following terms and definitions come from Sabine Baring-Gould's The Book of Werewolves; numbers in {brackets} indicate pages on which the terms are introduced and/or discussed.

church-dog, bar-ghest, pad-foit, wush-hound "animal haunting a churchyard" {106}
Lycanthropy:wolves::Kuanthropy:dogs::Boanthropy:cows {8}
versipellis "one who can change his skin" (Latin) {12}
loup-garou [pl., loups-garoux] "werewolf" (French) also: lou garol {2, 4, 106, 107}
eigi einhamir, eigi einhammr "not of one skin" (Norse) {15, 16}
hamrammr "man in beast form" {16}
gandreid "wolf's-ride" {17}
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/g/gandreid.html
vargliki "werewolf" {28}
Ulf "wolf" {36}
Ulfhamr "wolf-shaped" {36}
Ulfhednar [pl., Ulfhednir] "dressed in wolfskin" {36}
Berserkar [pl., Berserkir] "dressed in bearskin" {36}
kveldulfr, Kveldulf "evening wolf" or "twilight wolf" {43}
vargr "wolf" or "godless man" or "werewolf" (Norse) {48}
vargr (Norse) = were (English) = garou, varou (French) {48}
u-argr "restless" {48}
var-ulf "werewolf" (Danish) {48}
vaira-ulf "werewolf" (Gothic) {48}
wearg "scoundrel" (Anglo-Saxon) {48}
vargs "fiend" (Gothic) {48}
wargus "outlaw" {48}
verevulf "werewolf" or "outlaw" {48}
utlagh "outlaw" (Anglo-Saxon) {49}
louleerou [pl., louleerous] "werewolf" {106}
varga mor "wolf-witch" {108}
vrkolak "werewolf" (Bulgarian/Slovakian) {114}
vlkoslak "werewolf" or "vampire" (Serbian) {115}
wawkalak "werewolf" (White Russian) {115}
oborot "one transformed" (Russian) {117}
vilkodlak, vlkodlak, vlkolak "werewolf" (Slovakian) {117, 124}



A search for "werewolf" on the Mythical Creatures and Beasts Wiki turns up the following information:

Albania = oik
France = loup-garou
Greece = lycanthropos
Spain = hombre lobo
Mexico = hombre lobo and nahual
Bulgaria = varkolak
Turkey = kurtadam
Czech Republic/Slovakia = vlkodlak
Serbia/Montenegro/Bosnia = vukodlak
Russia = vourdalak
Ukraine = vovkulak(a), vurdalak(a), vovkun
Croatia = vukodlak
Poland = wilkolak
Romania = vârcolac, priculici
Macedonia = vrkolak
Scotland = werewolf, wulver
England = werewolf
Ireland = faoladh or conriocht
Germany = Werwolf
Netherlands = weerwolf
Denmark/Sweden/Norway = Varulv
Norway/Iceland = kveld-ulf, varúlfur
Galicia = lobisón
Portugal = lobisomem
Lithuania = vilkolakis and vilkatlakis
Latvia = vilkatis and vilkacis
Andorra/Catalonia = home llop
Hungary = Vérfarkas and Farkasember
Estonia = libahunt
Finland = ihmissusi and vironsusi
Italy = lupo mannaro


Alphabetically Consecutive Trigraphs (ABC, BCD, CDE, &c.)

I found words for the following trigraphs:

  1. DEF (defend, indefinite, &c.)
  2. FGH (afghan)
  3. GHI (laughing, sighing, &c.)
  4. HIJ (hijinks)
  5. LMN (calmness)
  6. MNO (hymnody)
  7. NOP (inoperative, synopsis, &c.)
  8. RST (burst, worsted, &c.)
  9. STU (astute, sturgeon, &c.)

The word-game word-list web site http://www.morewords.com/ provides examples for the above as well as the following:
  1. ABC (dabchick)
  2. XYZ (hydroxyzine)

-- and for this alphabetically consecutive tetragraph:

  1. RSTU (overstuffed, understudy, &c.)