January 23, 2003

THE ANAGRAMMATIST.

This week's New Yorker has a "Talk of the Town" piece by Dana Goodyear on Demetri Martin, a Greek-American comedian obsessed with language games. Along with creating "one of the longest, non-computer-generated, sensemaking palindromes in English" (called "Dammit, I'm Mad"), he has composed the wonderful "All the Words Printed on a Bottle of Rolling Rock Beer in a Different Order":

Women, your ability to operate extra tender springs from birth.
Good machinery comes as your contents cause enjoyment.
Cash, beer, a car: rock and rolling.
During "it," the general warning:
"We may risk pregnancy according to old problems."

Posted by languagehat at January 23, 2003 09:43 AM
Comments

I've always loved "Flee to me, remote elf," but I don't have a clue who wrote it, and I don't have my copy of An Almanac of Words At Play here (where I first read it). But I did find The Willard R. Espy Foundation, which pleases me mightily.

Posted by: Moira at January 23, 2003 08:51 PM

Random: the public restroom of the Amherst Delicatessen in Amherst, Massachusetts is graffitied with a large number of clever palindromes--or at least it was some years ago; does anyone know whether it still is?

Posted by: Songdog at January 24, 2003 02:11 PM

I'd like to find the rest of this work. Is it on the net somewhere?

Posted by: Steve at January 26, 2003 10:38 PM

Some good palindromes here, with visual aids.

http://www.comedycentral.com/webshows/spot/art/

Posted by: Steve at January 26, 2003 10:45 PM

A story about two anagram geniuses, with a link to this webpage, has just been posted in the March edition of The World's First Multi-National e-Book, http://bdb.co.za/shackle/articles/two_geniuses.htm

Posted by: Eric at February 28, 2006 11:41 PM

Huh. Thanks for letting me know!

Posted by: language hat at March 1, 2006 07:13 AM