This past week’s puzzle, as shown earlier:
Reading through my social media feeds this past weekend, I saw that someone posted the old adage:
“STRESSED spelled backwards is DESSERTS”While trying to come up with a witty retort, I realized that the best I could do on short notice was:
“Yeah, well, SMUG spelled backwards is GUMS!”It turns out that these word pairs are very similar to palindromes, but aren’t true palindromes — they are sort of “half-palindromes.” A little research lead to me read that they are called anadromes, heteropalindromes, or “emordnilaps” a word coined from the word palindrome spelled backwards.
This week’s GeekDad Puzzle of the Week centers around palindromes and anadromes. Each of the 15 phrases below is a clue that will either lead you to a single-word palindrome or a pair of anadromes.
- More crimson
- Transporting Qurash (Diablo III)
- Treated as a god
- Students’ errors
- Repair via interlocking loops
- Fear of palindromes
- First cylindrical appearance
- Chanted to wildebeests
- House guard’s pocket badge
- To apply wallpaper again
- Thin layers of fauna
- Gary Burghoff
- Benign growths from drinking tools
- Inuit transport
- To sketch a prison guard again
Congratulations to Ian McLeod for correctly decoding the palindromes and anadromes encoded in the list above. This week’s $50 Gift Certificate from the fine folks at ThinkGeek will be on its way shortly.
Here are the clues and their corresponding palindromes and anadromes:
- More crimson – redder
- Transporting Qurash (Diablo III) – deliver reviled
- Treated as a god – deified
- Students’ errors – pupils slipup
- Repair via interlocking loops – tinker reknit
- Fear of palindromes – aibohphobia
- First cylindrical appearance – tubed debut
- Chanted to wildebeests sung gnus
- House guard’s pocket badge – gateman nametag
- To apply wallpaper again – repaper
- Thin layers of fauna – animal lamina
- Gary Burghoff – Radar
- Benign growths from drinking tools – straw warts
- Inuit transport – kayak
- To sketch a prison guard again – redraw warder
Many thanks to everyone that posted a solution to this week’s puzzle, and to ThinkGeek for sponsoring the GeekDad Puzzle of the Week feature.
Happy puzzling!