I don’t remember when I first learned what a palindrome is. But I’m sure I was young. My Dad was always spelling words backward, and sometimes, around the dinner table, we would talk with backward words. We would laugh out loud when he’d say our names backward. Yllop Regrebnenork. That’s me. Then he would say, “Rettub eht ssap.”
But at some point, he introduced the sameness of certain backward words, like “madam,” “bob,” or “rotor.” Those lovely palindromes. They are words, phrases, verses, sentences, or a series of characters that read the same, forward and backward.
They need a better name, I think. Because a Palindrome sounds like some ancient Greek arena or some futuristic sci-fi rollerblading rink. The Palindrome Effect. I can almost see the movie now.
Anyway, they can be as short as three characters — like “mom,” “dad,” or “tot,” for instance. The whole short backward family. Conversely, they can be as long as an entire novel.
Here is one sentence I borrowed from the world wideness:
Are we not pure? “No, sir!” Panama’s moody Noriega brags. “It is garbage!” Irony dooms a man — a prisoner up to new era.
Not exactly Pulitzer material, but it runs the same, to and fro.
We all encounter many palindromes in our daily lives. If we plan to take the “kayak” down the river, we’re going in a palindrome. If you want to eat lunch at “noon,” it is going to happen in a palindrome.
They are everywhere in our language. From everyday speech to works of literature. Classical music composition to molecular biology.
Whether you want to know the origin or not, I’m going to tell you here. So skip ahead if the Greeks tend to bore you. The word “palindrome” derives from the Greek word palíndromos, meaning “running back again.”
However, more people than just the Greeks used palindromes. Since at least 79 AD, palindromes appeared in Latin, Hebrew, and Sanskrit.
Much later, in 1614, an English poet, named John Taylor was hailed as one of the first palindrome writers when he wrote: “Lewd did I live, & evil I did dwel.”
Sometimes people take artistic license when they write verses in palindromes. I’m not sure this should be allowed. If I were the referee of palindromes, I’d be calling “foul” all over the place. Like with old John Taylor right there? If you ask me, using “dwel” with one “L” is out of bounds.
Anyway.
Just like Wordle, palindromes really caught on way back then. In the following centuries, their popularity rose upward. By 1971, the Guinness Book of World Records began to recognize the world’s longest palindromes. Big awards. Official guys in suits. Hoopla. Parties.
Between 1971 and 1980, the winner grew from 242 words to 11,125 words.
With palindromes, the same rules of punctuation, capitalization, and spacing don’t apply, as with everyday language.
Here’s another thing. Those words that spell another word backward? Like “live” becoming “evil”? Or like “Trump” becoming “dumbass?” Oh, wait. Wrong blog. Let’s try “devil” becoming “lived.” Those are called a semordnilap, which happens to be itself a semordnilap of palindrome.
We all know some of the most famous palindromes in the English language, like “Madam, I’m Adam.” Or. “A nut for a jar of tuna.”
But there are some record-breakers out there.
• The longest palindromic English word, according to the Guinness Book of World records: detartrated. Unlike most English palindromes, which usually have seven letters or fewer, this one has eleven.
• The best palindromic place name: Wassamassaw. Wassamassaw is a swamp in South Carolina
• The best Finnish palindrome: saippuakuppinippukauppias. This is the Finnish word for a soap cup trader, one of the longest palindromes in the world. But who really trades soap cups? Now that I mention it. What the heck is a soap cup?
• The longest palindromic novel: Lawrence Levine’s Dr. Awkward & Olson in Oslo. In 1986, Lawrence Levine published the 31,954-word novel. It is primarily gibberish.
So, back to front. They work both ways.
They are kind of the poster child for peace, don’t you think? For this world to have peace, things have to work both ways. To and fro. Back and forth.
Maybe that’s why the world will never know peace. Expecting humans to do this is primarily gibberish.
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“Al lets Della call Ed “Stella.”
— Palindrome
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“Murder for a jar of red rum.”
— Palindrome
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“Was it a car or a cat I saw?”
— Palindrome
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Taco Cat
