To continue my SATOR-AREPO treatise, I present some examples of magic word squares in English, of from "order one" to "order twenty-five" level of difficulty. This job gets progressively more difficult. I must add parenthetically that Bombaugh, C.C. in his treaatise, Oddities & Curiosities, ed. M. Gardner, has larger squares, but none of these reads in all four directions, as mine do. Likewise Ripley, R. in his very popular newspaper column, Believe It or Not, frequently ran examples of such magic squares, that could be read only in two directions. I first became acquainted with SATOR-AREPO by reading his column at the age of ten or so years. The "one square" "square" is nearly trivial, but here goes: "I" and "A" The letter "A" can be a noun, as in " 'A' ok," or, "I got an 'A' in the examination." The four square array comes up with "OH HO." Illus. 1-a. Illus. 2-a through c. The nine square array comes up with "TEN EWE NET," "NET, EKE TEN" and "DEW EVE WED." (Illus. 2-a to c.) At this point we begin to notice that the central word in an odd-numbered array has to be a palindrome in its own right. (See Illus. 2.) In English I can come up with "tenet," "rotor" and "civic," as central palindromic words for the twenty-five-square array, and there are others; but I get ahead of myself. (Illus. 3-a through d.)O H H O
T E N N E T D E W E W E E K E E V E N E T T E N W E D
G N A W S T E W B O N K T A P S N O N A T I M E O N A N A T I P A N O N E M I T N A N O P I T A W A N G W E T S K N O B S P A T
The sixteen square array comes up with "GNAW NONA ANON, WANG," "STEW TIME; EMIT WETS" and "BONK ONAN NANO KNOB." If you have to ask what Onan did to become famous, look it up! (Illus. 3-a thru d.) Some of these, like "TAPS ATIP PITA SPAT," push the meaning of the word "meaning" to the limit. Do they have "pita" bread in England?
If this use of language strains your credulity, try this headline from this morning's paper: "CAMPY, PRECISE HIVES BRILLIANT IN SPLITS, SPATS[!]"
As for my attempts to achieve the twenty-five square array, in English, I submit them herewith, with the proviso that these are not going to be high literature, by any stretch of the imagination. If you can do better, do it! This project I find difficult. One of these will have a feeble effort at the "derived cruciform array" attached, in the manner of [alpha] Pater Noster [omega] (see "SATOR-AREPO" or this won't make sense). I was constrained to present this in Italian. As in the case of Sir Edmond Hillary, this is a pioneering effort. (Illus. 4-a, b.)
If you are willing to resort to the strategem of dividing each line of the square into two (or more) words, you can make the twenty-five square "magic square" with less difficulty than if you aimed only to create the purest form, that with one word per line. Here you will be permitted at least one "coined" proper name, in the spirit of SATOR-AREPO, which, as I mentioned in my study of this Latin magic square, contains the name "Arepo," and this name has never been definitely attached to any character of any kind in the ancient world. The name is merely "opera" spelled backwards. (Again, this will make no sense if you haven't read the SATOR-AREPO text.).
Illus. 4-a, b.
| O | R | C | A | S | R | E | C | A | P | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R | O | I | L | A | E | S | I | N | A | ||||
| C | I | V | I | C | C | I | V | I | C | ||||
| A | L | I | O | R | A | N | I | S | E | ||||
| S | A | C | R | O | P | A | C | E | R |
"ORCAS ROIL A CIVIC ALI- OR SACRO-."(Illus. 4-a) "Ali-" and "sacro-" are combining forms that are in the dictionary. A split (two-word per) line square.
"RECAP ESINA, CIVIC ANISE PACER." (Illus. 4-b.) In this case, "Esina" is the "coined" proper name.
EUREKA! I have done it! Here at last (Illus. 4-b), is the twenty-five letter square in English! I have labored assiduously for years to get to this point!
So Illus. 5-a is the cruciform array in Italian that I derived from "RECAP ESINA &c." The phrase is "Cispa evincerà." This translates, "The rheumy-eyed one will evict."
Illus. 5-a.
| C I S P A E C I S P A E V I N C E R À I N C E R À |
|---|
Some fairly explicit directions follow.
A few hints for those who would wish to experiment with this. If you can find any five-letter words that contain "ao-" in them, then it is likely that backwards this word might turn into another that has meaning. There are many more "oa-" words than "ao-" words in English. Ditto, "ie-" words versus "ei-" words, keeping in mind the old adage: "'I' before 'E' except after 'C,' when the sound is long 'E.'" Principle exceptions: "Neither species of fiery millionaire seized either species of weird leisure. You lie!"
Since you will usually have to get a verb into the sentence somehow, the imperative mood is best to look for here. Steady alternation between vowel and consonant is desirable. For this reason it will probably be easier to contrive these in Spanish or Italian than English, French or German, not to mention others. Finally, such excrescences of antique English pronunciation that persist in such spellings as those with "-gh-" or "-ght" in them are best avoided. Also the formula "th-" (as in "this," not in "hothead") is out. Maybe someone could write a program that would sort through Wm. Gates' dictionary for five letter words, especially those that alternate vowels and consonants, such as "anise."
The twenty-five square palindrome is constructed by these rules: the central cross (in all odd-numbered squares, such as "nine" and "twenty-five" totals) is a palindrome by its own right (e.g.: "tenet"). Squares 2 and 6, plus 20 and 24 must have the same letter in them. Ditto squares 4 and 10, 16 and 22. Then come 1 and 25 (the same) and 5 and 21 (the same). Are these words? Do they parse? You are done!
These five-letter-word magic squares of mine are the first and only ones I have ever seen, in any language, outside of SATOR-AREPO in Latin. As I have mentioned before, the perfect twenty-five square palindromic magic square should consist only of words that are five letters long, not broken-up lines of shorter words. The ball is in your court!
At >www.csit.fsu.edu/~burkardt/ datasets/words/pentagram.html< you will fnd a monumental list of five letter words in English. A "word ladder." If clicking this link doesn't work, you could copy this (don't copy > or <), go to Google and then paste it in the window; it will take you there. This will take a while to download, and you will still have to sift through the whole thing for words that make sense when spelled backwards. In other words this needs more work. All the palindromic words (e.g. "tenet," "rotor," "civic, "madam" and so on) need to be sifted out. Then useless words that have no letters equal to the second and third places in the palindromic words should be sifted out; then all words that have no meaning when spelled backwards should be sifted out. I leave this to someone else.
12-07-2004
Contact W. Bentley, P.O. Box 575, Occidental CA 95465, or at wilderbentley@yahoo.com[.]
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