‘One of the most Important wordplay books of the twentieth century’ Verlmtun MAKING k DANCE Recreational Wordplay ROSS EC KLEK ROSS ECKLER MAKING THE ALPHABET DANCE ROSS ECKLER MAKING THE ALPHABET DANCE R E C R E A T I ON A L WOR DP L AY M A C M I L L A N First published 1997 by St Martin’s Griffin, New York First published in Great Britain 2001 by Macmillan an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Ltd 25 Eccleston Place, London SWlW 9NF Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world www.macmillan.com ISBN 0333 90334 X Copyright © A. Ross Eckler 1996 The right of Ross Eckler to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. 135798642 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham pic, Chatham, Kent This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. To DMITRI BORGMANN (1927-1985) the father of logology ON TRIMMING BRAD The barber’s a BANDIT. GRIM NORM, Whenever he runs true to form, Charges Brad fifty bucks at the door. When it comes down to BIRD-NAMING, “MORT” Is Norm’s name for his raven, whose forte Is to croak from his perch “Nevermore.” Norm’ll frequently BRING ARM TO MIND— Brad hears him complain “Life’s unkind! From fingers to shoulder I’m sore!” What Brad gets every MORNING: BAD TRIM (The light in Norm’s shop is too dim). Bad hair days are hard to ignore! —^Ross Eckler CONTENTS AUTHOR'S PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XVI I INTRODUCTION BY MARTIN GARDNER xix ONE FORBIDDEN LEHERS, OBLIGATORY UTTERS 11 LIPOGRAMS 2 1 2 VOWEL LANGUAGE 7 13 CONSONANTAL CHARACTERIZATION 12 14 ACROSTICS 13 15 TEXT-DETERMINED OBLIGATORY OR FORBIDDEN LETTERS 16 16 TELEPHONE WORDS AND POLYPHONIC CIPHERS 20 1 7 WORD DICE 23 18 IS Q ALWAYS FOLLOWED BY U? 25 TWO LEHER PAHERNS AND DISTRIBUTIONS 21 PALINDROMES 30 22 TAUTONYMS 36 23 SWITCH WORDS 38 24 WORD GRAPHS 41 25 WORD TILES 46 26 ISOGRAMS 49 27 PANGRAMS 5 1 28 THE PANGRAMMATIC WINDOW 57 29 LETTER DISTRIBUTIONS 59 THREE WORD FRAGMENTS 31 BIGRAMS, TRIGRAMS, TETRAGRAMS 64 32 CONSECUTIVE IDENTICAL LETTERS 71 VIII Making the Alphabet Dance 33 CADENCES 73 34 LETTERS ANYWHERE IN THE WORD 74 35 ANCHORED LETTERS 78 36 INTERNAL PALINDROMES AND TAUTONYMS 8 1 FOUR TRANSFORMING ONE WORD INTO ANOTHER 41 INSERTIONS AND DELETIONS 87 42 FROM LADDERS TO WORD NETWORKS 92 43 A MATHEMATICAL DIGRESSION: THE STRUCTURE OF WORD NETWORKS ■ 98 44 FROM STRINGS AND RINGS TO DIRECTED NETWORKS 1 07 45 HALF-OVERLAPPING DIRECTED NETWORKS AND WORD FRAGS 1 1 5 46 TRANSPOSITIONS 1 1 9 47 SPECIAL TRANSPOSITIONS 1 35 48 TRANSPOSITIONS OF PHRASES AND TEXT 138 49 TRANSDELETIONS AND TRANSADDITIONS 1 44 FIVE i(ALPHABETICAL ORDER AND SCORING 51 THE LAST WORD 152 52 WORDS CONTAINING ADJACENT ALPHABETICAL LETTERS 1 54 53 A-TO-Z WORD LISTS 1 59 54 HOMONYMS OF THE ALPHABET 161 55 WORDS CLASSIFIED BY ALPHABETIC PROPERTIES 1 64 56 LETTER-SHIFTS, SHIFTGRAMS, COLLINEAR WORDS 1 73 57 SCRAMBLED ALPHABETS 1 79 58 LETTER-SCORING 1 83 59 WORD BALANCE 1 86 SIX WORD GROUPS 61 WORD SQUARES 1 88 62 VARIATIONS ON THE SQUARE 1 98 63 PARTIALLY OVERLAPPING WORD GROUPS 203