Taxonomy of Wordplay | |
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Contents | previous: Spelling: Letters Selected from Given Set | next: Spelling: Relations to Other Words
Letter AppearanceEntire Wordspelled with short lowercase letters = acemnorsuvwxz, longest [L155]
common word: uncommonnesses (14)
uncommon words: curvaceousnesses, nonerroneousness, overnumerousness (16-t)
phrase: on cross, o cross, a cross (19)
spelled with tall lowercase letters = bdfghijklpqty, longest [6-188,12-216]
common words: highlight, hillbilly (9-t)
uncommon word: hightytighty (12)
hyphenated word: tit-tit-tit-tit-tit (15)
spelled with letters with descenders = gjpqy, longest
common words: g, j, p, q, y (1-t)
uncommon word: gyppy (5)
spelled with letters with ascenders = bdfhijklt, longest
common words: lilith, tidbit, titbit (6-t)
uncommon words: hidihhidih, kilikkilik (10-t)
hyphenated word: tit-tit-tit-tit-tit (15)
rotation or reflection symmetry [L27,1-39,4-92,144,11-177,237,14-221]
a. spelled with vertical symmetry letters = AHIMOTUVWXY, longest [12-109]
common word: ayutthaya (9)
uncommon word: hohohohohohoh (13)
hyphenated word: tit-tit-tit-tit-tit (15)
phrase: wo ho, wo ha, wo ho ho, wo ha ho (20)
b. spelled with horizontal symmetry letters = BCDEHIKOX, longest [11-237,12-216]
common word: okeechobee (10)
uncommon word: hohohohohohoh (13)
hyphenated word: heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh (18)
c. spelled with full-symmetry letters = HIOX, longest
common words: hi, ho, oh, ox (2-t)
uncommon word: hohohohohohoh (13)
d. catoptron (word which remains the same when it is reflected in a mirror), longest [4-92]
i. vertical catoptron, longest
common word: toot (4)
uncommon word: hohohohohohoh (13)
hyphenated word: tit-tit-tit-tit-tit (15)
e. upside-down word (word that remains the same when it is turned upside down) [14-221]
i. longest lowercase
common words: dollop, palled, passed, sasses (6-t)
uncommon word: solosolos (9)
ii. longest uppercase
common word: swims (5)
uncommon word: hohohohohohoh (13)
f. upside-down word pair
i. longest lowercase
common words: llamas & sewell (6)
uncommon words: pajamas & sewered (7-t)
uncommon words: salades & sapeles (7-t)
uncommon words: pappous & snodded (7-t)
uncommon words: alaqala & elebele (7-t)
uncommon words: pallads & spelled (7-t)
uncommon words: pallews & smalled (7-t)
... and 4 others
ii. longest uppercase
common words: nos & son (3)
uncommon words: omoomo & owoowo (6-t)
uncommon words: simmis & siwwis (6-t)
uncommon words: mossom & wossow (6-t)
iii. pigpen-invertible word (word whose pigpen-cipher symbols, turned upside down, decode to another word), incl.
invertible word squares [24-103,25-190]
e.g. FIB <-> HAD, LIP <-> LAP (pigpen symbols turned upside down); FED inverts to itself
g. ambigram (lettering readable in another orientation) [TJ2-36,TJ3-87,TJ6-4,TJ6-31,TJ7-57]
e.g. OXO reads the same upside down; the ambigram title lettering of Angels and Demons
h. rotational palindrome (text unchanged by a quarter turn) [42-97]
e.g. with N <-> Z under a quarter turn: X ZO ON OZ NO X ON ZO NO OZ X
i. symmetry-class pattern (one letter from each symmetry class) [40-187]
e.g. GIVEN, CLOYS, SMILE: one letter each with no, all, left-right, up-down, rotational symmetry
unusual punctuation [19-67]
a. most hyphens in one dictionary entry [11-177,11-214]
e.g. john-go-to-bed-at-noon, kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate (5 hyphens each, Webster's Third)
b. digits and other non-letter characters in dictionary entries, for each digit [4-152,5-57]
e.g. Webster's Third: 606 and 1080 (digits only); A2-HORIZON, URANIUM 235, 20/20
straight-line or curved word (spelled with capitals of straight strokes only, AEFHIKLMNTVWXYZ, or curved only), longest [32-133,32-256,34-292,36-3,36-137,37-125,38-233,40-66,41-310,WW52.2-46]
e.g. METHYLHEXANEAMINE (17, straight strokes only); COUSCOUS, COUSCOUSSOU (curves only)
diagonal-stroke word (spelled with AKMNVWXYZ), longest [38-36]
e.g. Nakayama (8); zyzzyva, anyway, manana (all diagonal-stroke letters)
Euler-path word (every letter drawable in one stroke), longest [37-280]
e.g. DISILLUSIONING, SOLILOQUIZING
same in both cases (spelled with cosuvwxz), longest [38-218]
common words: cows & vows & zoos
same headshot or footprint (words whose letter tops, or letter bottoms, look identical) [38-240,38-308]
e.g. FEAR & PEAR, REEL & KEEL same footprint; PEST & REST same headshot; BEAD & DEAD both
alternating letter heights (letters alternate with ascenders or descenders), longest [32-278]
e.g. LUTEINIZING, SINICIZING (ascenders alternate with body letters); trimyristate (12)
narrowest word in print, for each length [41-20]letter length (total stroke length in an idealized font), longest and shortest [39-37]
e.g. idealized stroke lengths, e.g. I = 2.00, O = 6.28 (a circle of diameter 2)
stroke count (letters valued by pen strokes) [20-173,32-141,TJ1-9]
e.g. capitals valued by pen strokes, e.g. L = 2, T = 2, H = 3, E = 4, so TELL = 10
calculator word (number that reads as a word on an upside-down calculator), longest [7-142,34-16,43-254,45-22]
e.g. 37818 = BIBLE (read upside down)
interlingual homoglyph (letter string that reads as a word in two scripts) [8-204,10-23,46-165,244,WW52.4-39]
e.g. Russian HET (net, 'no') and PECTOPAH (restoran) also read as Latin-letter strings
rn/m confusion pair (words alike in print because rn resembles m) [33-270]
e.g. modern/modem, corners/comers, cornet/comet, stern/stem, turn/tum
internally capitalized word (capital letter inside a word), for each letter [5-72,5-204]
e.g. Tir na nOg, TelAutograph, RaMBaM, DeYoung
kamchatka word (spelled only with capitals shared by the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets: ABCEHKMOPTXY), longest [48-215]
e.g. kamchatka, mammoth, catacomb (all letters from ABCEHKMOPTXY)
typographic wordplay (word or text drawn to show its meaning) [TJ1-66,TJ3-10,TJ6-5,IN3-57]
e.g. S P A C E (letters spaced out); ELEVATOR written climbing upward
a. qwaint (self-illustrating misspelling: a word spelled so as to show its own meaning) [22-123]
e.g. greeed; dsylexia; sp ce; shorthnd; mi££ionaire
Subset of Wordratio dotted to undotted letters, highest [1-169,23-153]
common words: jib, jig (0.66-t)
uncommon words: ijaji, ijdji, jilij, jipij, ujiji (0.8-t)
ratio letters with descenders to those without, highest
common words: guppy, gypsy, jaggy, pappy, peppy, piggy, poppy, puppy, pygmy (0.8-t)
ratio letters with ascenders to those without, highest
common words: hillbilly, killifish (0.88-t)
uncommon words: khalkidhiki, khalkidiki, filthiffed, filthified, tittifills (0.9-t)
consecutive dotted letters, most [41-310]
e.g. HIJINX, BEIJING (i, j, i: three dots in a row)
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