Archive for Palindromes

PP: Party Boobytrap

Everyone knows what a palindrome is: a word that reads the same backwards as forwards (except for spaces and punctuation). Maybe the fact that everyone knows about them is why it's taken me a year and a half to get around to writing about them. The most famous palindrome is probably "Madam, I'm Adam." Perhaps […]

B: Draws Cab (Reader Comments)

Arthur supplies this switchback ladder: MIRED DENIM LINED DEVIL LIVER REVEL LEVEL LEVER BEVEL There are several other places you can go from LEVER, such as REBEL or RAVEL, but none of them seem to lead anywhere useful. I thought it would be really cool to mirror the ladder through the palindrome—that is, to go […]

B: Draws Cab

There are plenty of words which turn into other words when spelled backward. (No, not when spelled "backward," smart-aleck. When the order of the letters is reversed, okay?) "Straw" turns into "warts," "mart" into "tram," "room" into "moor," "reward" into "drawer." More unusual—or at least less commonly discussed—are words I call "switchbacks": words which turn […]