Words!

This is the 40th anniversary of my membership in the National Puzzlers League and also in the American Cryptogram Association. Over these four decades, I have increased my knowledge of many types of puzzles and ciphers. However, I still am nowhere being the expert I expected to be when I joined these organizations in 1971. I still have a lot to learn.

Although I am still a word novice, let me discuss a few "word" subjects with you.



01. New Words: AARP has listed words that were new in 2010. Here are a few:



bargainous = costing less than expected



bromance = close platonic male friendship



lovacore = one who primarily eats locally grown food



matchy-matchy = excessively color coordinated



webisode = episode or short film made for viewing online



staycation = vacation spent at home



turducken = roast of a chicken inside a duck, inside a turkey



own = to utterly defeat or humiliate



cheeseball = lacking taste or style



chillax = to calm down and relax



02. Metaphors.. from Raymond Chandler, via Harpers.

As cute as a washtub.

As much sex appeal as a turtle.

As clean as an angel's neck.

A face like a collapsed lung.

A mouth like a wilted lettuce.

A nose like a straphanger's elbow.

03: Words in common:

See if you can figure out what these words (from Jack Kolb) have in common:

banana
dresser
grammar
potato
revive
uneven
assess

Give up? Check the answer at the end below.

04. Euphemisms.. from George Carlin.

toilet paper.. becomes bathroom tissue
loafers.. become slip-ons
toupees.. become hair appliances or hair replacement systems
false teeth.. become dental appliances
dashboards.. become instrument panels
dump.. becomes landfill
buckteeth.. becomes overbite
hair spray.. becomes holding mist
constipation.. becomes occasional irregularity
diarrhea.. becomes lower gastric distress

George Carlin showed us hundreds of euphemisms for everyday things.. he was a master with the English language.

05. Puzzledom: In the world of puzzles, I am called AHAB and my brother Joe is called ISHMAEL. (Check out Moby Dick by Herman Melville.) Ishmael is a much better puzzler than Ahab. I have puzzles from him that I haven't solved in over twenty years. I'm still trying.

06. Life lesson words: When my son, Chris, was young, I gave him a phrase to think about. "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." I wanted him to realize that if he studied hard and /learned more than the "other guys" he would definitely succeed in life.

I was pleasantly surprized a year later when my son presented me with a desk plaque that read:
"Joe Vaughan, One-Eyed King" I cherished this plaque for many years at the Social Security Administration, and it was a constant source of discussion by visitors to my office.

George Carlin has a euphemism for this phrase also: "In the kingdom of the visually impaired, the partially-sighted person is fully empowered." Doesn't have the same zing, does it?

07. The Rev and his words: In my last blog, I mentioned that I would like to be able to see programs from the 1980's involving Reverend Ike... I said that I did not know how to find such shows. Well, I should have guessed, my brother, Joe told me how to get to see them. I can't wait.

08. LOVE words! I started to review a vhs tape from 1986 that had the title Buscalia on the label. It is a tape of Channel 67 (Maryland Public Television) showing Felice Leo Buscalia interacting with an audience of admirers at Towson State University (Maryland). Mr. Buscalia was the acknowledged expert on the subject of love.. he loved to be hugged and hugged anybody he could get his hands on.

He had lots of stories to illustrate LOVE. In one of them, he talked about an old philosopher he once met. He asked the philosopher about the difference between heaven and hell. The old man gave the following definitions:

In hell, there are beautiful tables filled with wonderful food and delicious desserts. But.. all of the people are starving to death. Why? Because they are required to use 4-foot long forks to eat with.. and the forks are too long to allow them to get food to their mouths.

But.. In heaven, there are also beautiful tables filled with wonderful food and delicious desserts. And.. all of the people are happy and healthy. Why? Because although they also are required to use 4-foot long forks to eat with... they know that they can eat very well by feeding each other. (A loving response.)

09. Huh? Harper's magazine makes this statement in its Findings listing: "Particle physicists were optimistic about the possiblity of creating something out of nothing, because nothing is actually something.""

10. Last Words: The Week Magazine reports that Ohio has imposed a time limit on the last words of condemned prisoners. This came about because one murderer apologized and recited the "Hail Mary" for 17 minutes before his execution.

11. Canadian Words: Canadians are squeemish about killing Canada geese because of their name. Most people think that the Canadian Goose (actually "cackling goose") is their national bird. Each of these birds deposits two pounds of poop per day. Think about that.

Hundreds of Canadian geese have taken up residence at the Social Security Administration in Woodlawn, Maryland and it is difficult to walk on the sidwalks without stepping in goose poop. Every day, water is sprayed on the sidewalks to clear them off; however, as far as I can see, it isn't that effective.

12. Words of Wisdom about Education: (as reported by Jon Winokur in Funny Times)

"If the Romans had been obliged to learn Latin, they never would have found time to conquer the world." Heinrich Heine

"I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education." Wilson Mizner

"I read Shakespeare and the Bible, and I can shoot dice. That's what I call a liberal eduction." Tallulah Bankhead

"It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know." Henry David Thoreau

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Answer to #03 above: For all of the words shown, take the first letter, put it at the end of the word, and then spell the word backwards. It will be the same word that you started with!
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Avoid Alzheimers, try Cryptic Crosswords

Have you ever done Cryptic Crosswords? Not the usual ones you see in almost every newspaper, but the ones that British people love.

When I was a child, I sat next to my grandfather, in his smoke-filled stinky den while he compiled the world's greatest crossword puzzle dictionary. He would give me puzzles to solve and I became quite expert in the American style crosswords.

I became a member of the National Puzzlers League in 1974 and branched out into all kinds of mental puzzles, and discovered Cryptic Crosswords. These are the crossword puzzles that people in the British Empire enjoy solving. These employ tricky word-play. If you want to keep exercising your brain and you want to do something quite different from the normal crosswords, such as appear in most daily papers, I would highly recommend Cryptic Crosswords.

You can find these puzzles in magazines like The Nation and BBC Music. The Atlantic Monthly as well as The New Yorker used to have good ones each month, but they were dropped, apparently because there wasn't enough interest by ordinary subscribers.

British newspapers, like the Times and the Guardian publish cryptics. I hate to admit it, but I have NEVER completely finished even one of the Times cryptics. However, I have done some of the Guardians as well as ones from other British papers. BBC Music Magazine has a great music-themed cryptic each month. They are quite tough for me, but I learn something about classical music each month when I attempt to solve them. British puzzles naturally contain a lot of terms and words that Americans usually are not used to, and this makes them a bit tough, at least for me. But I love the challenge.

The cryptic in The Nation has been posed each month for years by a gentleman with a great sense of humor and a very wide knowledge of all kinds of things. I am able to solve almost all of them, but they do give my brain a workout.

Recently, the magazine THE WEEK has begun a regular crossword that is similar to a cryptic in humor and wordplay.

I have my regular puzzle "fixes". Every month, I do cryptics from The Nation, BBC Music Magazine, British newspapers, the National Puzzlers League, books from Borders, and wherever else I can find them. But I try not to ignore regular American crosswords, especially the tough ones in The Week magazine and the New York Times. (I'm sure you know that the American style puzzles in the Times start rather easily on Mondays and get progressively harder as the week progresses.)

Cryptic puzzles emply a number of different wordplay types.. such as anagrams, hidden words, charades, etc. If you haven't tried them, you are in for a mental treat.

Outside of the National Puzzlers League, I have only been acquainted with one other person who loved cryptic crosswords. His name was Chuck Adkins, and he worked for me at the Social Security Administration. Chuck was a puzzler and I got him interested in Cryptics.. and all of a sudden, he was submitting cryptic puzzles to Games Magazine. If you subscribe to that magazine, take a look at the names of the cryptics contributors, you may see a puzzle submitted by him. Even though Chuck passed away a couple of years ago, that magazine still publishes his cryptics periodically. Chuck was an amazing person and a good friend. I miss him.