Conference thebay::joyoflex

Lil
Nan
Viv

Mom (Well, maybe when she grows up...)
Sis, if she has any siblings

Tot, a generic description of what she'll be for a while


Dave C.

  Is there a term for a word or number that reads the same upside down
  as rightside up?  1961 and 1881 were numeric examples of such.  Can
  anyone think of any English word examples?

  JP

As to the girl's palindromic names, I still like "Hannah" and "Arora" just 
as much as I did over in the GRAMMAR notes file.  And I still think 
"Barbarabrab" would be far too silly. {8')

As to .4, I can find only 6 letters which could be used in upside down 
words -- H, I, O, S, X and Z.  (Of course, H works only in upper case.)
To form words which read the same upside down as they do rightside up as in 
'1961', the words must be palidromic.  'SIS' is the only example I could 
come up with.  To match the looser symmetry of '1881', however, the words 
needn't be palindromes.  'HIS' and 'SIX' join 'SIS' as examples of this 
category.  

I know of no name for such words.  We could create one, though.  How about 
HIOSXZ, meaning 'words formed from letters which look the same both 
rightside up and upside down'?  Of course, this satisfies only the '1881' 
form.  To match '1961' form, we'd have to call them HIOSXZXSOIH, meaning 
'palindromic words formed from letters which look the same both rightside 
up and upside down'.  This, however, would be very silly. 

     					Otto

    Re .4 --
    
    Off the top of my head, I think "pod" would qualify (in lower case).
    There seems to be a word for almost everything, but I don't know
    what you would call such a word.
    
    PS:  Thanks for the palindromic names.  I'm always open to suggestions,
    but it looks like it's going to be "Hannah".  We had decided on that 
    name before we realized that it was a palindrome.  So the year makes it 
    even more fitting, not to mention the fact that she's already acting 
    like a little palindrome.
    
    -- Thinking of "Bob" as a middle name ;)
    
    - cj
    [End

    Kim is an intensely creative type who is/was buddies with Douglas
    Hofstadter of "G�del, Escher, Bach" fame.  I have no publisher info but
    Kim's book is chock-full of this exact form.  In fact I still carry
    around in my wallet the hand-drawn inversions that my kids did when
    they were "into" this particular weird wonderfulness.  Enjoy, and
    THANKS for the rathole!!  Cheers, Dan

  To Otto,

  Thank you for that.  I don't think silliness is an issue around here.
  (And does anyone have any aspirin handy?)

  I think there is more to be said about the types of symmetry here.  Only 
  after reading your reply did I realize that 1961 and 1881 are fundamentally
  different.  1961 is a valid "upside-downer" only if you rotate it about the
  z axis (perpendicular to the screen).  1881 works when rotated about the
  x, y, or z axis.  Obviously we need more and better terms to capture
  this distinction.

  And it is only a matter of time before we begin discussing inside-out
  constructions...

  JP

John,

     Sorry, but a full year of calculus was not enough to convince me that 
"z-axis" was not a phonetic misspelling of the organization supported by 
French enemy sympathizers during WW2 (use a french accent).  
     As for turning things inside-out, I'm not sure this conference is 
ready for lexical Dali.  Oh, what the heck.  Let's give it a shot.

     	Hello, Dali!

     				otto (works only on the x and the y, but that's
     				      more than most people can claim!)

PS -- Why do I have this gnawing feeling that things are about to get 
wierd?  

	Call her Otto!

	No, call her Amanaplanacanalpanama.  It goes better with 
	Keating.

	Re .4 -- wish I had enough Greek or Latin to come up with
	something.  "Palindrome" means "running back again," so it
	won't do.  What's the Greek for "running back again upside
	down"?

		-- Cliff

re .-1

	> What's the Greek for "running back again upside down"?

How do the Greeks say "passing situation"?

Larry

>>	Call her Otto!

     		Now, wait a minute!  I like women more than almost anything 
(except golf and possibly baseball), but I am not female!

>>	No, call her Amanaplanacanalpanama.  It goes better with 
>>	Keating.

     		How about 'Afoofamanaplanacanalpanamafoofa'?  It doesn't 
make any sense, but it is longer.  (I KNEW it was going to get wierd in 
here!)

>>	Re .4 -- wish I had enough Greek or Latin to come up with
>>	something.  "Palindrome" means "running back again," so it
>>	won't do.  What's the Greek for "running back again upside
>>	down"?

     		How about 'headache-city'?  You can pronounce it with a 
Greek accent, if you like.

     		This is much, much too silly, but it's tasty and so good 
     				for you.....

     						Otto

To briefly return to the base note, I don't think anyone has mentioned `Ada'.  
Choosing this gives you the added advantage of a connection with computing as 
well as palindromicity.

Jon

    re: .11
    
    tee hee.
    
    --bonnie

	And her middle name should be Eve.

		-- C

Re: .16

Eve was the second, and she was married to the first:

"Madam, I'm Adam."

  Well, I'll second Dave's suggestion: our younger daughter is named
  "Anna".

  Otto,

  It occurs to me that font/rendition plays a part here.  E.g., if you 
  were to represent your name as

                    o++o

  well, there you are happily spinning on all axes again.  If you want
  to let people know that inside out is OK as well, just toot.

  Sorry.  That won't happen again.

  I'm also sorry you said things were about to get weird.  That sort
  of statement is usually treated as a challenge by the readership.
  Said readership has at its command levels of weirdness as yet 
  unplumbed and I cringe at the prospect...

  JP

John,


     "Wierdness as yet unplumbed", eh?  I grow flush with the prospect.  I 
want to bathe in a shower of wierdness.  All you wierd folks out there: 
pipe in!  What do you think?  Will we tap an endless well, or will we 
simply feel drained at the end?  Is this a trap?  
     I'd better shut off for now, lest I become tapped out.  I hope 
this topic doesn't go down the toilet, since our friendly moderator might 
just pull the plug. {8') 

     				O+ +O
     				  ^
     				\___/

re: .21

Is that a parody of Parodi?

    re: .0
    
    Adida?
    
    --bonnie

    
    
    
    				�x!
    
    

    Wow, the parody of Parodi has parity!

    If you want a palindromic name, don't stop at the first.
    
    .0 should name the daughter "Gnitaek Keating".
    
    		-John

It seems we are having a party as we parry with profundity each 
'Parodi-parody' of parity with clarity and a white wine sauce on a bed of 
fresh linguini and spam.

     	JTWFW (Just too wierd for words) (Oh, No!! What have I said??)

     				O+ +O
     				  ^
     				\___/  

	Otto: calm down!

	Why not call her "O."  I'm pretty sure this one is a girl's 
	name.

		-- C

Sorry, but gosh, I love this conference!  How did I ever survive without it 
before?


     				Otto

    variant of .26
    
        Gnita E. Keating

Would that be a Boustrophepalindromedon?

Wook

> Would that be a Boustrophepalindromedon?

	Hey!  that's the ticket!  Evene though it does sound like
	something that did in some of my Cro-Magnon ancestors.

		-- C