Buzz
If you're a fan of wordplay, you’re likely familiar with palindromes—words or phrases that are the same forwards and backwards. But what do you call a word that forms another word when reversed or a word that remains identical when turned upside down? Before specific terms for these visual word tricks were coined, logolologists (including the authors of the books below) eagerly created their own names. Here are a few examples.
1. Isogram
A word in which no letter appears more than once.
Dimitri Borgmann’s most extensive example: dermatoglyphics, the study of skin prints or patterns found on fingers, hands, and feet, and how it's applied, particularly in the field of criminology.
2. Pangram
A sentence or phrase that includes every letter of the alphabet (ideally with minimal repetition of letters).
You might recall this one from typing lessons: "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy sleeping dog," but Willard Espy created a more concise and quirky version: "Bawds jog, flick quartz, vex nymphs." A variety of pangrams, featuring unusual words or initials, can be found here.
3. Palindrome
A word, phrase, or longer written passage that reads the same when reversed.
Example: A famous statement humorously attributed to Napoleon, "Able was I ere I saw Elba." Weird Al Yankovic's song “Bob” parodies Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” using numerous palindromes. Want more? Check out a treasure trove here.
4. Semordnilap
A word or name that spells a completely different word when read backward (notice what semordnilap spells in reverse).
Semordnilaps (a term coined by Martin Gardner in 1961) are also referred to as backronyms, volvograms, heteropalindromes, semi-palindromes, half-palindromes, reversgrams, mynoretehs, recurrent palindromes, reversible anagrams, word reversals, or anadromes. (It seems that wordplay enthusiasts really enjoy inventing new terms!)
Here’s a semordnilap that dieters will understand: Stressed is desserts spelled backward.
5. Kangaroo word or marsupial
This refers to a word that contains another word within it (without rearranging any letters).
Example: encourage holds courage, cog, cur, urge, core, cure, nag, rag, age, nor, rage, and enrage. Ouch! That mama roo is going to need a pouchlift after carrying around that brood!
6. Lipogram
A written work created by carefully selecting words to avoid using one or more specific letters.
You might call F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Gatsby great, but in 1939, Ernest Vincent Wright achieved the extraordinary feat of writing Gadsby: A Story of Over 50,000 Words Without Using the letter “E,” a nearly unbelievable accomplishment considering that "E" is the most frequently used letter in the English language. Picture an entire novel without using he, she, the, or even the past tense marker –ed.
7. Rebus
A way of representing words through pictures, letter names, or symbols that suggest the sounds of the words.
Rebus has been part of English since 1605, when William Camden wrote, “They which lackt wit to expresse their conceit in speech, did vse to depaint it out … in pictures, which they called Rebus.” Once a favorite in autograph books and on vanity license plates, rebuses include timeless examples such as:
YYUR; YYUB. ICUR YY4me NE1410S 4 A _ I 8 0
(The solutions are provided below.)
8. Tautonym
David Grambs defines this term as a word or name consisting of two identical components, such as so-so, tom-tom, or Pago Pago.
9. Anagram
A word or phrase created by rearranging the letters of another word or phrase.
The English term anagram dates back to 1589. Grambs uses the term transposal in a broader sense, while reserving anagram more specifically for a transposed arrangement of letters that results in a synonymous term. Some call these particularly fitting anagrams 'aptigrams.' For example, Villainousness is an anagram of 'an evil soul’s sin.'
10. Antigram
The reverse of an aptigram, these words or phrases form antonyms when their letters are rearranged.
Examples: violence — nice, love; funeral — real fun.
11. Ambigram
A term coined by John Langdon for words designed to appear the same when flipped upside down, often achieved through calligraphy.
Willard Espy refers to a word that remains the same when flipped as an invertogram, while Schaaf uses the term strobogrammatic for numbers that have the same appearance upside down. Examples: NOON, SWIMS, SIS; 1881, 1961, 91016.
Rebus solutions: Too wise you are; too wise you be. I see you are too wise for me. Anyone for tennis? For a long period I ate next to nothing.
Sources: Borgmann, Dmitri A. Language on Vacation: An Olio of Orthographic Oddities, 1965. Espy, Willard. The Word’s Gotten Out, 1989. Grambs, David. Words About Words, 1984. Langdon, John. Wordplay: Reflections on the Art of Ambigrams, 1992. Schaaf, William Leonard. A Bibliography of Recreational Mathematics, v. 4, 1978.
