Word Games
License plate game (LPG)
To pass the time while driving in slow traffic, I invented this game: Take all the letters in a car’s license plate (in California , it’s always three, except for trucks and vanity plates). You must think of a word that uses those three letters in that order. You’re allowed to add and insert as many letters as you like (before, between, or after) but the original three must be in the word, in the original order.
For example, the letters VGY are part of the word VIGOROUSLY.
GRG could be GRUDGE or GROWING or GRUELLING. There might be
several words from any three-letter combination.
YNX, of course, is part of the word LYNX . But also part of two other words:
LARYNX and PHARYNX.
Ready? See if you can think of a word that has these letters in this order:
DQY
Here’s another combination:
BZG
And number three:
UUU
Palindrome Fest
Palindromes are words or phrases that read the same whether spelled backward or forward. You know the famous ones:
Madam, I’m Adam. (supposedly said by the first human on meeting Eve)
Able was I, ere I saw Elba . (said by Napoleon on being exiled to Elba )
You can find plenty of palindromes online:
Emil, a sleepy baby, peels a lime.
Enola Devil lived alone.
Epic Erma has a ham recipe.
Some are impossibly strained and unreadable:
A dim lap and I did napalm Ida.
Yo, bad anaconda had no Canada boy.
Here are some whimsical palindromes I found a few years ago:
A dog! A panic on a pagoda!
Sit on a potato pan, Otis.
Campus motto: Bottoms up, Mac.
Splat! I hit Alps .
Do you know other palindromes? Send ‘em in!