Feature: Palindromes: What They Are And Why They’re Cool
My college grammar teacher brought to class one day a long, thin piece of paper with a mysterious, incomprehensible phrase printed on it. He quietly tacked it up above the chalkboard, then went about the business of the class. Two days later, he brought in another slip of paper with another seemingly meaningless phrase and tacked it up. By the fourth such phrase, a few people in the class were starting to catch on. Eventually he told us what all these phrases had in common. Can you guess? Here are a few of the phrases he gave us:
A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!
Go hang a salami; I’m a lasagna hog.
No, sir, away! A papaya war is on!
Did you guess? All of these phrases read the same whether spelled forwards or backwards. They are called palindromes.
What is a palindrome, anyway?
By definition, a palindrome is "A word, phrase, verse, or sentence that reads the same backward or forward." There are many examples of palindromes in English. Some are single words, like "dad", "deified", "kayak", "mom", "repaper", "reviver", "rotator", "radar", and "tenet". Most single-word palindromes in English are seven letters or fewer, but in other languages they can be longer, particularly in languages like Dutch, German, or Finnish, which lend themselves to stringing words together into long compounds. Then you can find neat words like "parterretrap" (a first floor stairway), "reliefpfeiler" (a decorated column or pillar), "saippuakauppias" (a soap dealer), or even "saippuakivikauppias" (a soap stone dealer)!
Palindromes can be placenames--like Wassamassaw, a swamp in South Carolina--or proper names, like the Yreka Bakery, a former business in Yreka, California. Others are short phrases, like "Madam, I’m Adam" or "Dennis sinned!" Still others, as you saw above, are longer, more complex sentences. Here are a few more fun ones:
A dog! A panic in a pagoda!
Able was I ere I saw Elba. (A famous palindrome about Napoleon’s exile.)
Mr. Owl ate my metal worm.
Red rum, sir, is murder.
Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?
I roamed under it as a tired, nude Maori.
Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. (an album title by the band Soundgarden!)
Palindromes in history
Palindromes have been around since at least 79 AD, when the ancient Romans were playing around with them in Latin. Palindromes show up in ancient Hebrew, in ancient Sanskrit poetry, and in Byzantine Greek church inscriptions. In 1614, John Taylor, an English poet, penned the marvelously creepy palindrome "Lewd did I live, & evil I did dwel." He’s one of the first palindrome writers to be credited as such.
In modern times, palindromes have been gaining greater popularity, with the Guinness Book of World Records giving official recognition in 1971 to the longest palindromes. Between 1971 and 1980, the longest palindrome recognized by Guinness increased from 242 words to 11,125 words! At least some of these novel-length palindromes have been published: David Stephens’s 58,795-letter Satire: Veritas was printed as a monograph in 1980, and Lawrence Levine published the 31,954-word palindromic novel Dr. Awkward & Olson in Oslo in 1986.
Palindromes in politics
You might have heard the term recently in relation to U.S. politician Sarah Palin. Some of those who oppose Palin’s viewpoints have described her as a "Palin-drome: thing or person that when put forward, makes things go backward." Clearly, though, those people are just trying to "harass Sarah" and create a "star comedy by Democrats"!
Palindromes in other fields
As I'm sure you can imagine, there are other kinds of palindromes too, not just ones made out of words and letters. Any sequence of material that reads the same forwards and backwards is a type of palindrome. In molecular biology, there are palindromic strands of DNA. In the field of mathematics, recreational mathematicians look for palindromic numbers with special properties, like a palindromic number that's also a prime number. Palindromes appear in music, too. Classical composers like Joseph Haydn and George Crumb used palindromic sequences of notes in their compositions. In modern popular music, bands like Hüsker Dü and Bela Fleck have experimented with palindromic sequences of notes, and Weird Al Yankovic and They Might Be Giants have played around with palindromic lyrics in their songs.
Palindrome Days
It’s particularly appropriate that we talk about palindromes right now, because we recently celebrated a Palindrome Day, at least in the U.S. A palindrome date is one where, if you reverse the order of the numbers in the date, it reads the same forwards as backwards: 01/02/2010. January 2nd, just two weeks ago, was a palindrome day. The last palindrome date wasn’t that long ago: October 2, 2001, or 10/02/2001, but before that, the last one was in 1380! Because there can only be up to 31 days in a month, palindrome dates can only occur within the first few hundred years of a millennium.
The next palindrome day in the U.S. will be on 11/02/2011: November 2nd of next year. But if you live in a country that puts the day before the month, your 01/02/2010 will happen in just over two weeks, on February 1st! How exciting! And overall, you’ll get a total of 60 palindrome days to celebrate this millennium.
Summary
In that long-ago undergraduate grammar class, I had no idea what fabulous world of palindrome wordplay my professor was introducing me to. I still have his timeless words of wisdom, "Go hang a salami; I'm a lasagna hog", hanging up above my computer, reminding me of all the possibilities there are in language. I hope you've enjoyed this trip down Palindrome Lane. Now go hog some lasagna, and get those salamis hanging!
Works Consulted
Eckler, Ross. Making the Alphabet Dance: Recreational Wordplay. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996, pages 30-36.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindrome
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_(poet)
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-palindrome.htm
The Palindromist Magazine
"Palindrome day: No turning this day around", in The Christian Science Monitor, January 2, 2010.
"What's so special about today? It's a palindrome", in The Boston Globe, January 2, 2010.
A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!
Go hang a salami; I’m a lasagna hog.
No, sir, away! A papaya war is on!
Did you guess? All of these phrases read the same whether spelled forwards or backwards. They are called palindromes.
What is a palindrome, anyway?
By definition, a palindrome is "A word, phrase, verse, or sentence that reads the same backward or forward." There are many examples of palindromes in English. Some are single words, like "dad", "deified", "kayak", "mom", "repaper", "reviver", "rotator", "radar", and "tenet". Most single-word palindromes in English are seven letters or fewer, but in other languages they can be longer, particularly in languages like Dutch, German, or Finnish, which lend themselves to stringing words together into long compounds. Then you can find neat words like "parterretrap" (a first floor stairway), "reliefpfeiler" (a decorated column or pillar), "saippuakauppias" (a soap dealer), or even "saippuakivikauppias" (a soap stone dealer)!
Palindromes can be placenames--like Wassamassaw, a swamp in South Carolina--or proper names, like the Yreka Bakery, a former business in Yreka, California. Others are short phrases, like "Madam, I’m Adam" or "Dennis sinned!" Still others, as you saw above, are longer, more complex sentences. Here are a few more fun ones:
A dog! A panic in a pagoda!
Able was I ere I saw Elba. (A famous palindrome about Napoleon’s exile.)
Mr. Owl ate my metal worm.
Red rum, sir, is murder.
Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?
I roamed under it as a tired, nude Maori.
Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. (an album title by the band Soundgarden!)
Palindromes in history
Palindromes have been around since at least 79 AD, when the ancient Romans were playing around with them in Latin. Palindromes show up in ancient Hebrew, in ancient Sanskrit poetry, and in Byzantine Greek church inscriptions. In 1614, John Taylor, an English poet, penned the marvelously creepy palindrome "Lewd did I live, & evil I did dwel." He’s one of the first palindrome writers to be credited as such.
In modern times, palindromes have been gaining greater popularity, with the Guinness Book of World Records giving official recognition in 1971 to the longest palindromes. Between 1971 and 1980, the longest palindrome recognized by Guinness increased from 242 words to 11,125 words! At least some of these novel-length palindromes have been published: David Stephens’s 58,795-letter Satire: Veritas was printed as a monograph in 1980, and Lawrence Levine published the 31,954-word palindromic novel Dr. Awkward & Olson in Oslo in 1986.
Palindromes in politics
You might have heard the term recently in relation to U.S. politician Sarah Palin. Some of those who oppose Palin’s viewpoints have described her as a "Palin-drome: thing or person that when put forward, makes things go backward." Clearly, though, those people are just trying to "harass Sarah" and create a "star comedy by Democrats"!
Palindromes in other fields
As I'm sure you can imagine, there are other kinds of palindromes too, not just ones made out of words and letters. Any sequence of material that reads the same forwards and backwards is a type of palindrome. In molecular biology, there are palindromic strands of DNA. In the field of mathematics, recreational mathematicians look for palindromic numbers with special properties, like a palindromic number that's also a prime number. Palindromes appear in music, too. Classical composers like Joseph Haydn and George Crumb used palindromic sequences of notes in their compositions. In modern popular music, bands like Hüsker Dü and Bela Fleck have experimented with palindromic sequences of notes, and Weird Al Yankovic and They Might Be Giants have played around with palindromic lyrics in their songs.
Palindrome Days
It’s particularly appropriate that we talk about palindromes right now, because we recently celebrated a Palindrome Day, at least in the U.S. A palindrome date is one where, if you reverse the order of the numbers in the date, it reads the same forwards as backwards: 01/02/2010. January 2nd, just two weeks ago, was a palindrome day. The last palindrome date wasn’t that long ago: October 2, 2001, or 10/02/2001, but before that, the last one was in 1380! Because there can only be up to 31 days in a month, palindrome dates can only occur within the first few hundred years of a millennium.
The next palindrome day in the U.S. will be on 11/02/2011: November 2nd of next year. But if you live in a country that puts the day before the month, your 01/02/2010 will happen in just over two weeks, on February 1st! How exciting! And overall, you’ll get a total of 60 palindrome days to celebrate this millennium.
Summary
In that long-ago undergraduate grammar class, I had no idea what fabulous world of palindrome wordplay my professor was introducing me to. I still have his timeless words of wisdom, "Go hang a salami; I'm a lasagna hog", hanging up above my computer, reminding me of all the possibilities there are in language. I hope you've enjoyed this trip down Palindrome Lane. Now go hog some lasagna, and get those salamis hanging!
Works Consulted
Eckler, Ross. Making the Alphabet Dance: Recreational Wordplay. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996, pages 30-36.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindrome
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_(poet)
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-palindrome.htm
The Palindromist Magazine
"Palindrome day: No turning this day around", in The Christian Science Monitor, January 2, 2010.
"What's so special about today? It's a palindrome", in The Boston Globe, January 2, 2010.