Constrained pyramids.

Constrained pyramids. Word pyramids, in which a letter is added at each step and theletters rearranged, will be familiar to the readers of Word Ways. Theaim has been to construct a pyramid pyramid, structurepyramid.The true pyramid exists only in Egypt, though the term has also been applied to similar structures in other countries. Egyptian pyramids are square in plan and their triangular sides, which directly face the points of the with as long a base word aspossible, ideally with all words from a single dictionary. Ross Ecklerconstructed an excellent pyramid, without any plurals, with the17-letter base word ANTICEREMONIALIST (Word Ways 79146), only slightlymarred by the inclusion of the non-dictionary RECLAMATION ReclamationA claim for the right to return or the right to demand the return of a security that has been previously accepted as a result of bad delivery or other irregularities in the delivery and settlement process. 1ST which seemsa perfectly good inferred word. Two pyramids of Kyle Corbin'sappeared in WW88075, both with a 17-letter base word, one pyramid withthree plurals and the other with five plurals. In WW2003021, DarrylFrancis offered the first pyramid with an 18-letter base wordPRESENTATIONALISMS. This pyramid included five plurals, two of whichwere straight pluralisations of the adjacent word. The pyramids offered here are not aimed at having the longest baseword. They are special, however, in that each of them abides by one ormore of a range of constraints CONSTRAINTS - A language for solving constraints using value inference.["CONSTRAINTS: A Language for Expressing Almost-Hierarchical Descriptions", G.J. Sussman et al, Artif Intell 14(1):1-39 (Aug 1980)]. . Most of the words used below are takenfrom the Oxford English Dictionary Oxford English Dictionary(OED) great multi-volume historical dictionary of English. [Br. Hist.: Caught in the Web of Words]See : Lexicography , Second Edition. The sources ofnon-OED words are given at the end. Let us begin with a pyramid which describes itself. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In these pyramids, each word starts with the same letter, and eachword ends with the same letter. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the first of these two pyramids, each word both starts andfinishes with the same letter, E. In the second pyramid, the second andpenultimate pe��nul��ti��mate?adj.1. Next to last.2. Linguistics Of or relating to the penult of a word: penultimate stress.n.The next to the last. letters are all Es. The letter E does not appear elsewherein these pyramids. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The alternating letters A and N form the sides of the firstpyramid. All the words in the second pyramid begin with A and end withAL. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] So far, we have concentrated on the first and last letters, thesecond and penultimate letters, and the first, penultimate and lastletters. Now we turn our attention to the central letters of the words.As these central letters have to be arranged in a vertical line, eachstep of the pyramid adds two letters rather than the more normal oneletter. The words of the first five pyramids below have one of the fivemajor vowels as their central letter. The vowel vowelSpeech sound in which air from the lungs passes through the mouth with minimal obstruction and without audible friction, like the i in fit. The word also refers to a letter representing such a sound (a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y). in question does notoccur elsewhere in the pyramid. The words of the sixth pyramid make acentral AEIOU AEIOU Any Easy Intimacy (book)AEIOU Alles Erdreich Ist ?sterreich Untertan (Austria Is to Govern the World)AEIOU Austriae Est Imperare Orbi Universo vertical line. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The central letters of the words in these four pyramids are5-letter sequences of alphabetically-consecutive letters. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The words of these two pyramids have constraints on their first,last and central letters. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A variation on single pyramids is to split a word into a number ofletter groups and then make a pyramid from each group. In each of thesetwo examples, the letter groups are the same length, seven letters andsix letters respectively. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Note that the tips of these five pyramids consist of the fivevowels in reverse alphabetical order. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] These two sets of pyramids are constructed from the same base wordsplit into groups of four, six and eight letters, and eight, six andfour letters respectively. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Other base words can also be split in more than one way. This isdemonstrated well by the 18-letter base word OVERDISCOURAGEMENT. Inthese first two examples it is split into groups having an equal numberof letters. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Alternatively, OVERDISCOURAGEMENT can be split into three and fourpyramids, each larger than its predecessor [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the first example below, the groups have progressively fewerletters; in the second, the two outer groups have an equal number ofletters so making a symmetrical symmetricalequally on both sides.symmetrical multifocal encephalopathyinherited disease in two forms: Limousin form appears at about a month old with blindness, forelimb hypermetria, hyperesthesia, nystagmus, aggression, weight set of pyramids. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] We have constructed pyramids which abide by a range of constraints.Readers might like to build their own pyramids using these, and perhapsother, constraints. Sources of non-OED words ALECTRION (Tertiary tertiary(tûr`shēârē), in the Roman Catholic Church, member of a third order. The third orders are chiefly supplements of the friars—Franciscans (the most numerous), Dominicans, and Carmelites. Faunas, Vol. 1 by A. Morley Davies, GeorgeAllen George Allen may refer to: George Allen (U.S. politician) (born 1952), former Republican United States Senator George Allen (athlete), American college and professional football player George Allen (football) (1918–1990), American football coach & Unwin 1971) COSTERMAN (Roget's Thesaurus Roget's Thesaurus is a widely-used English thesaurus, created by Dr. Peter Mark Roget (1779–1869) in 1805 and was released to the public on 29 April, 1852. The original edition had 15,000 words, and each new edition has been larger. ) AROEIN (Chambers English Dictionary) DENTOSURGICAL, ECHINOSPHAERITIDAE, IRIDATE, OVERDISCOURAGEMENT, PREGRANITE, SEMIDORMANT, TETRAKAIDECAHEDRON (Webster's SecondEdition) AMENTIAL, PETROLATE (Stedman's Medical Dictionary A medical dictionary is a lexicon for words used in medicine. The three major English language medical dictionaries are Stedman's, Taber's, and Dorland's medical dictionaries. ) SUSAN THORPE Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, England thorpeds@hotmail.com