Colloquy.

Colloquy. Don Hauptman wrote the New York Times: To the Editor, "Pun for the Ages" by Joseph Tartakovsky (Op-ed, March28) is an entertaining and informative review of the positive andnegative aspects of wordplay, and well-timed in its proximity to AprilFool's Day. But he doesn't mention one relevant and important point.America is facing a crisis of escalating illiteracy. In 2007, a reportby the National Endowment for the Arts concluded that students'reading skills are stagnating or falling, and that employers routinelycomplain that new hires are unable to write clearly or even tocomprehend what they read. How can this problem be addressed? Humor is a powerful motivator.Wordplay can encourage reading and language learning at all levels.Young children love puns and playing with words helps them expand theirvocabulary and master language skills. Adults from other parts of the world who study English delight inthe multiple meanings of many words. As for the writer's contention that puns are sometimes greetedwith groaning and scorn instead of laughter, remember what diamondcutters say: "They can't all be gems!" DON HAUPTMAN New York, March 28, 2009 The writer is the author of Cruel and Unusual Puns (Dell, 1991), acelebration of spoonerisms O.V. Miehaelsen says: I didn't claim authorship of the palindrome "R. E. Lee,potato peeler." That was a mistake. Lederer liked that one andmight have gotten it from my first manuscript. He liked a FEW things init and kindly included ideas and a long sentence written by my editor,before my book was published. A lot of material in his foreword to thatbook was taken from Antony B. Lake's A Pleasury of Wordplay (1975).I was elated the Mr. Lederer managed to mention my name in the foreword,but not so pleased with his anagram of my name: "Manic, heloves." "Love's machine" would have been moreflattering. I guess my anxiety disorder is perceived as manic. I found the palindrome "Robert E. Lee, potato peeler" ina 1983 issue of Dr. Crypton's Science Digest column. The palindromewas credited to "Crossman, Jr." Now it's an anonymouswritten "classic." To my knowledge, the anagram "G. Dubya = Bad guy" ismine. I submitted it to an anagram Website in 2001. Nearly twenty years ago, Ken Elrod mistakenly credited me formaterial I submitted to his Mensa SIG newsletter Word Fun. In my lettersto him, I carefully gave credit with each item. In '94 to '95, the editor of the Mensa InternationalJournal allowed me a small corner of a page devoted to form puzzles, butdid not allow the space to include my sources. A few members of the NPLjumped on the Word Fun and M. I. Journal problems without consideringthe possibility that the mistakes were not mine. Some Krewe members wereconvinced that I was a con man of some sort. They're bright people,but not quite ENOUGH. Jon Arno Lawson submits the following poem written in nine lines,the first line is a one-letter/word line. The second line has twotwo=letters words, the third has three three-letter words, etc. up tonine. The Crowd by Numbers I on my own see now what must have been clear other nights, stars, comet trails-orbits unfold across dreams, people collect, passive, orderly-observe horizon melting skyward tranquil ... peaceful. Suddenly, enormous nightsky scatters watchers outwards wandering separated homegrown multitude, aimlessly ambitious, traverses limitless distances. Simon Norton comments on the February issue: I discovered someerrors in my own article: (a) In my list of period patterns the one for u=4 was omitted. Itis (6,6,6). (b) In the 6th line of page 48 the equation should be $1_{2[conjunction]{n-1}}=f_{2[conjunction]n}/f_{2[conjunction]{n-1}}$. I think I must have mistyped the last underline as a minus sign asthat's how it has come out. A few other errors: In Julie Sussman's double crostic, theanswer to E is given as Tow Low. However the usual name is Tow Law.Interestingly when googling "tow low" I came across a website"Subterranea Britannica" which mentions Tow Low, but I thinkit's just a typo. Incidentally the words "law" and"low" have the same origin. And in the Webster quiz clue 37 is wrongly numbered 36, and thereal 37 is omitted. Also while clue 12 is no doubt literally true, tthink it's a bit misleading as I got the impression that the wholephrase was supposed to fit in the alphabetic sequence which itdoesn't. For Clue 9 I found another word that fits in the alphabeticsequence and whose meaning could plausibly have changed from that quotedby Webster: Buttery. I solved the back page puzzle instantly. The solution satisfies thestronger condition that all the broken diagonals also transpose toTourmaline. In any layout where the rows, columns and diagonalsincluding broken diagonals never repeat a letter, the occurrences ofeach letter must make up a knights move lattice. Oscar Thumpbindle replies: Simon Norton is quite correct. Here is asolution that tiles the plane. Notice in the middle 5x5 square that thefive vowels are Knight's mini-tours and so are five consonants. Forinformation about these ideas see "Magic Square Magic" in theMay, 2000 issue. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]