A Scramble for the White House

If you rearrange the letters in “Joe Biden” you get “Jibed One.” What do anagrams tell us about the rest of the 2008 presidential field?

  • Hillary Clinton = Rant, Chilly Lion
  • John Edwards = Jaws, Herd Nod
  • Rudy Giuliani = Gaudily I Ruin
  • Dennis Kucinich = Induces Inch Kin
  • John McCain = No Jam Cinch
  • Barack Obama = Maraca Kabob
  • Bill Richardson = Rabid, Shrill Con
  • Mitt Romney = Mime, Not Try
  • Fred Thompson = Hemp-Fond Sort

And “Al Gore” yields “Galore”.

| Language

Kangaroo Words

Kangaroo words contain smaller versions of themselves. INDOLENT, for example, contains the letters I-D-L-E, in order. Can you find the hidden synonyms in each of these words?

  • ABIDE
  • ALLOCATE
  • ASSEVERATE
  • ASTOUND
  • CALUMNIES
  • CATACOMB
  • DEPOSITORY
  • DESTRUCTION
  • ENCOURAGE
  • HONORABLE
  • ILLUMINATED
  • INEFFECTIVE
  • REVOLUTION
  • SCOUNDREL
  • TRANSGRESSION
  • UMPTEENTH
  • UNSIGHTLY
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| Language · Puzzles

Dig Latin

In 1980 the New York Daily News reported a state bailout of the city’s subway system.

It used the headline SICK TRANSIT’S GLORIOUS MONDAY.

| Language

“Geographical Love Song”

In the State of Mass.
There lived a lass,
I love to go N. C.;
No other Miss.
Can e’er, I Wis.,
Be half so dear to Me.
R. I. is blue
And her cheeks the hue
Of shells where waters swash;
On her pink-white phiz.
There Nev. Ariz.
The least complexion Wash.
La.! could I win
The heart of Minn.,
I’d ask for nothing more,
But I only dream
Upon the theme,
And Conn. it o’er and Ore.
Why is it, pray,
I can’t Ala.
This love that makes me Ill.?
N. Y., O., Wy.
Kan. Nev. Ver. I
Propose to her my will?
I shun the task
‘Twould be to ask
This gentle maid to wed.
And so, to press
My suit, I guess
Alaska Pa. instead.

— Anonymous, cited in Carolyn Wells, A Whimsey Anthology, 1906

| Humor · Language · Poems