Colloquy.

Colloquy. Anil asks about Jim Puder's "Foldedness Factor in LetterArrays" in the May issue: I suspect there [is] a fatal flaw in his argument. By excluding words already embedded in the Greek alphabet sequence he strongly stacked the deck in favour of the more folded arrays, since they would have fewer original sequence words not to count. What would the numbers look like if he had not excluded them? I bet the differences between the A and C groups would largely or totally disappear ... Have I failed to grasp his rationale for the exclusions? Do they not make it a self-fulfilling conjecture? Stuart Kidd corrects various errors in "Mizmaze" in theAugust 2000 issue: (1) in the H stanza stan��za?n.One of the divisions of a poem, composed of two or more lines usually characterized by a common pattern of meter, rhyme, and number of lines.[Italian; see stance. , mazhor should be mahzor mah��zoralso mach��zor ?n. pl. mah��zor��im or mah��zorsThe Jewish prayer book containing rituals prescribed for holidays. ; (2) inthe U stanza, there is no UT bigram ("But the vacuum ...");(3) in the Z stanza, arzunite should be arzrunite; (4) in the M stanza,there is no MJ bigram ("might place the circumjacent cir��cum��ja��cent?adj.Lying around; surrounding.[Latin circumiac gymkhana gym��kha��na?n.1. Any of various meets at which contests are held to test the skill of the competitors, as in equestrianship, gymnastics, or sports car racing.2. The place where such an event is held. firmly in the community column ..."). Susan Thorpe Thorpe? , James Francis Known as "Jim." 1888-1953.American athlete. An outstanding collegiate football player, he later played professional football and baseball. writes "Noah would like it made clear that noneof Rex Gooch's examples in the August 2002 Colloquy col��lo��quy?n. pl. col��lo��quies1. A conversation, especially a formal one.2. A written dialogue.[From Latin colloquium, conversation; see qualify forentry to the Ark ... only words with two of each different consonant consonantAny speech sound characterized by an articulation in which a closure or narrowing of the vocal tract completely or partially blocks the flow of air; also, any letter or symbol representing such a sound. areallowed ... Rex's words have more than two of some consonants This is a list of all consonants, ordered by place and manner of articulation. Ordered by place of articulationLabial consonantsBilabial consonants bilabial click [ʘ] . Noahwon't admit the Borgmann coinage coinageCertification of a piece of metal or other material (such as leather or porcelain) by a mark or marks upon it as being of a specific intrinsic or exchange value. Croesus (r. c. either, even though consonant-wiseit would `qualify'. Today I offered Noah the wordDEGERSTENSGRUNDET, the name of an island in Sweden. It has two each ofsix different consonants: DD GG NN RR SS TT. Noah had no hesitation inallowing it into the Ark." Rex Gooch writes about "Azorean: New Spelling for the 21stCentury": I'm a little hesitant to comment too strongly on this, as I am sure a great deal of work went into it, and the article would not have been able to address the many issues raised. I find it is the representation that causes the problems, rather than the essential idea, which I hope many would support (I live a few miles from the abode of George Bernard Shaw, who left money in his will for promotion of simplified spelling in English). I welcome many things, such as the return to the Anglo-Saxon differentiation between the two TH sounds. Firstly, I am horrified by the use of punctuation symbols as letters. This means that all artificial grammars will have to be rewritten (i.e., the definition of all programming languages), quite apart from confusion in texts. Why not use accents? These are a proven solution to the problem, covering also the ch and sh sounds (by using c and s cedillas, Turkish). Accents are easy to implement on a normal keyboard, simply by designating one key (as a dead key). To type an e acute, you press e, then the dead key, then (e.g.) the /. That's how we cope with Ancient Greek, with multiple accents and breathings on a vowel ... The keyboard should not dictate to this extent. Secondly, I am unhappy with the pronunciations in some cases. English uses multiple vowel sounds, for example A (asymmetric) is pronounced with a mouth which closes during the sound, unlike most European languages, in which the mouth has a constant position for pure vowels. Indeed, the mouth position in French (and others) takes up successive positions to represent, for example, differently accented Es. This leads to difficulty with some of his comparisons. Chris McManus responds to a query in the February 1970 Word Ways,which gave an 8x7 crossword containing the 26 letters of the alphabet alphabet[Gr. alpha-beta, like Eng. ABC], system of writing, theoretically having a one-for-one relation between character (or letter) and phoneme (see phonetics). Few alphabets have achieved the ideal exactness. once each, and asked for smaller solutions. The next issue gave twosolutions of 6x7, and a flawed flaw?1?n.1. An imperfection, often concealed, that impairs soundness: a flaw in the crystal that caused it to shatter.See Synonyms at blemish.2. 5x8 solution. The following solution alsouses 42 total spaces, but in 3x14 format: [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The following reduces the crossword to 3x13, or 39 total spaces,but includes the proper noun proper nounn.A noun belonging to the class of words used as names for unique individuals, events, or places. Also called proper name. Qum, a city in Iran. Sh, hm, and vac areall found in the OSPD OSPD Official Scrabble Players Dictionary Third Edition. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Rex Gooch comments on "Of Visa for the Mind": Your article in this issue was interesting. The alleged machine translation of "out of sight, out of mind" was "blind, mad"! I am surprised that you remarked on the importance of accents; they are so fundamental I would have thought their importance went without saying. On the other hand, it probably was worth remarking on the asymmetry of translations. If I choose one English word to translate a foreign one (and note that it may have to be a phrase), then again face a choice when translating back, the scope for error is high because you often have multiple choices. You chose diddy translators. For many years, machine-assisted translation of foreign texts has been common--for example, Russian technical texts into English. Typically, such programs divide the screen into two, with the translated text on the right. Queries are highlighted, alternatives given, and instantly available are extremely detailed descriptions of the use of any word on the screen, often pages long, going far beyond `verbal noun' and the like. Indeed, I understand that speech is now translated on the fly. Darryl Francis noted in the Sep 5 issue of the London Times thefollowing 77-letter pangrammatic window in an article about dressy dress��y?adj. dress��i��er, dress��i��est1. Showy or elegant in dress or appearance.2. Smart; stylish.dress foodwriter Nigella nigella (nī·jelˑ· Lawson (review section, page 3): "Call me Scheherezade," she e[xclaims, apropos of a saffron-scented chicken pilaff, "but I'm in my turquoise gauze veil and jew]elled slippers for this one." Jeff Grant writes about "My First Ten-Square" Well done, Rex! I can only imagine the time he must have taken to assemble the 10-letter word database that made the square possible. It is only a matter of time before a fully-acceptable 10-square is found. It certainly looks exotic with all those foreign place-names. I thought TAUTOLOGIA may have existed in an older English dictionary or an early synonym for `tautology', but can't find it in any of my books. You can tell the square is computer-generated--what formist would consider using MAHRAS DAGI as a base word? Did any reader note the unusual feature of the May Table ofContents?