Word Smith

Words, words, words,.... I started loving words when I was doing my 5th
semester (BE, in Anna university), and when I started preparing for my
GRE Exams.... After my 5th semester I do not remember any class where I slept,
since we started playing games related to words. one such game is "cows and bulls",
which students of 5th, 6th.. grade play... but we liked the game
very much and we used that game to improve our vocabulary.

Legend:

We = back bench boyz, which emerged as the fofy (the Freak Out Final Years),
when we were doing our final year..

here, I would like to give some words with peculiar properties...

first lemme start with words which does not have vowels
(i mean words without letters a,e,i,o,u, not vowel sound)
(feel free to add to this list).

my
by
why
sky
shy
cry
fry
try
wry
spry
tryst
gypsy
rhythm

"ryhthm" is the longest word without vowels, i have come across.
(and of course the most toughest word to guess while playing cows and bulls).

and coming to palindromes....(a cliche for you,....although..),
with some meaning in it... the list is:

A
I
civic
level
refer
madam
radar (bad example, ;-)
Rotator
aibohphobia (fear of palindromes)

I do not want to add "malayalam" to the above list....

whenever I come across the word "palindrome", a peculiar property
of palindrome numbers pops up on top of mind.

"a palindrome decimal number of even length will always be a multiple of 11".
eg : 234432

I published the above observation(discovery?) in aBaCUS 2002 magazine(thanks to the editors ;-)),
and just thought putting it here, if anyone has missed it...

and i came across some words which when gets reversed it will give different meanings...
here are few of those...:

tar = rat
no = on
ten = net
god = dog ;-), good word for ma kinda ppl
Live = evil
pool = loop
was = saw
raw = war
are = era
tool = loot

and it goes on...

of course, all the palindromes fall in to this category....

oops, i have received an SMS, wait lemme read.....

i tried to reply to my friends SMS, and I felt very difficult in typing
the following sentenced...

beef

and lots more words are there which is very difficult to type in a mobile
phone. surprised is another such word and it keeps going..

ok, I think I can sign off with this, and will get back to this column,
with lot more interesting facts!!!!