navanavonmilita
2010-04-14 16:07:58 UTC
Madam I'm Adam: Sid Harth
Palindrome
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the movie, see Palindromes (film). For the song and EP, see I
Palindrome I. For lists of palindromic words in various languages, see
Wiktionary:Appendix:Palindromic words. For the disease, see
Palindromic rheumatism.
A palindrome is a word, phrase, number or other sequence of units that
can be read the same way in either direction (the adjustment of
punctuation and spaces between words is generally permitted).
Composing literature in palindromes is an example of constrained
writing. The word "palindrome" was coined from Greek roots pálin
(πάλιν; "again") and drómos (δρóμος; "way, direction") by English
writer Ben Jonson in the 1600s. The actual Greek phrase to describe
the phenomenon is karkinikê epigrafê (καρκινική επιγραφή; crab
inscription), or simply karkiniêoi (καρκινιήοι; crabs), alluding to
the backward movement of crabs, like an inscription which can be read
backwards.
History
The Sator SquarePalindromes date back at least to 79 AD, as the
palindromic Latin word square "Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas" was
found as a graffito at Herculaneum, buried by ash in that year. This
palindrome is remarkable for the fact that it also reproduces itself
if one forms a word from the first letters, then the second letters
and so forth. Hence it can be arranged into a word square that reads
in four different ways: horizontally or vertically from either top
left to bottom right or bottom right to top left.
A palindrome with the same property is the Hebrew palindrome "We
explained the glutton who is in the honey was burned and
incinerated" (פרשנו רעבתן שבדבש נתבער ונשרף; PRShNW R`BTN ShBDBSh
NTB`R WNShRP or parasnu ra`avtan sheba'dvash nitba'er venisraf) by
Abraham ibn Ezra, referring to the halachic question as to whether a
fly landing in honey makes the honey treif.
פ ר ש נ ו
ר ע ב ת ן
ש ב ד ב ש
נ ת ב ע ר
ו נ ש ר ף
Another Latin palindrome, In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni ("We
go wandering at night and are consumed by fire"—In girum ire is
translated as "go wandering" instead of the literal "go in a circle",
cf. Italian andare in giro, "go strolling or wandering around"), was
said to describe the behavior of moths. It is likely from medieval
rather than ancient times.
Byzantine Greeks often inscribed the palindrome "Wash [the] sins not
only [the] face" Νιψον ανομηματα μη μοναν οψιν; Modern: Νίψον
ανομήματα μη μόναν όψιν; Nīpson anomēmata mē mōnan ōpsin, note ps is
the single Greek letter psi (Ψ)) on baptismal fonts. This is the font
at St. Mary's Church, Nottingham and also the font in the basilica of
St. Sophia, Constantinople, the font of St. Stephen d'Egres, Paris; at
St. Menin's Abbey, Orléans; at Dulwich College; and at the following
churches: Worlingsworth (Suffolk), Harlow (Essex), Knapton (Norfolk),
St Martin, Ludgate (London), and Hadleigh (Suffolk).
Palindromes in ancient Sanskrit
Palindromes of considerable complexity were experimented with in
Sanskrit poetry. An example which has been called "the most complex
and exquisite type of palindrome ever invented",[1] appears in the
19th canto of the 8th century epic poem śiśupāla-vadha by Magha. It
yields the same text if read forwards, backwards, down, or up:
sa-kA-ra-nA-nA-ra-kA-sa-
kA-ya-sA-da-da-sA-ya-kA
ra-sA-ha-vA vA-ha-sA-ra-
nA-da-vA-da-da-vA-da-nA.
(nA da vA da da vA da nA
ra sA ha vA vA ha sA ra
kA ya sA da da sA ya kA
sa kA ra nA nA ra kA sa)
in other words, it is numbers or letters that can be read backwards or
forwards (note: hyphen indicates continuation of same word). The last
four lines are an inversion of the first four and are not part of the
verse. They are only included here so that its properties can be more
easily discerned, as the up-and-down reading depends on re-reading the
text back up again in each column.
The stanza translates as:
[That army], which relished battle (rasAhavA) contained allies who
brought low the bodes and gaits of their various striving enemies
(sakAranAnArakAsakAyasAdadasAyakA), and in it the cries of the best of
mounts contended with musical instruments (vAhasAranAdavAdadavAdanA).
Types
Characters
The most familiar palindromes, in English at least, are character-by-
character: the written characters read the same backwards as forwards.
Some examples of palindromic words: civic, radar, level, rotator,
rotor, kayak, reviver, racecar, and redder.
Phrases
Palindromes often consist of a phrase or sentence ("Go hang a salami
I'm a lasagna hog.", "Was it a rat I saw?", "Step on no pets", "Sit on
a potato pan, Otis", "Lisa Bonet ate no basil", "Satan, oscillate my
metallic sonatas", "I roamed under it as a tired nude Maori," or the
exclamation "Dammit, I'm mad!"). Punctuation, capitalization, and
spacing are usually ignored, although some (such as "Rats live on no
evil star") include the spacing.[2]
Famous quotations
Three famous English palindromes are "Able was I ere I saw Elba"[3]
(which is also palindromic with respect to spacing), "A man, a plan, a
canal, Panama!",[4] and "Madam, I'm Adam".
A possible palindromic reply to the last of the above is "Name no one,
man."[citation needed]
Names
Some people have names that are palindromes. Lon Nol (1913–1985) was
Prime Minister of Cambodia. Nisio Isin is a Japanese novelist and
manga writer, whose real name (西尾 維新, Nishio Ishin) is a palindrome
when romanized using Kunrei-shiki or Nihon-shiki (it is often written
as NisiOisiN to emphasize this). Some changed their name in order to
be a palindrome (one example is actor Robert Trebor), while others
were given a palindromic name at birth (such as philologist Revilo P.
Oliver and Korean-American Mike Kim).[5]
Words
Some palindromes use words as units rather than letters. Examples are
"Fall leaves after leaves fall", "First Ladies rule the State and
state the rule: ladies first" and "Girl, bathing on Bikini, eyeing
boy, sees boy eyeing bikini on bathing girl". The command "Level,
madam, level!", composed only of words that are themselves
palindromes, is both a character-by-character and a word-by-word
palindrome.
Lines
Still other palindromes take the line as the unit. The poem
Doppelgänger, composed by James A. Lindon, is an example.
The dialogue "Crab Canon" in Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach
is nearly a line-by-line palindrome. The second half of the dialog
consists, with some very minor changes, of the same lines as the first
half, but in reverse order and spoken by the opposite characters
(i.e., lines spoken by Achilles in the first half are spoken by the
Tortoise in the second, and vice versa). In the middle is a non-
symmetrical line spoken by the Crab, who enters and spouts some
nonsense, apparently triggering the reversal. The structure is modeled
after the musical form known as crab canon, in particular the canon a
2 cancrizans of Johann Sebastian Bach's The Musical Offering.
Molecular biology
Main article: Palindromic sequence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindromic_sequence
Restriction enzymes recognize a specific sequence of nucleotides and
produce a double-stranded cut in the DNA. While recognition sequences
vary widely, with lengths between 4 and 8 nucleotides, many of them
are palindromic, which correspond to nitrogenous base sequences
between complementary strands, which, when read from the 5' to 3'
direction, are identical sequences.
Numbers
Main article: Palindromic number
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindromic_number
A palindromic number is a number whose digits, with decimal
representation usually assumed, are the same read backwards, for
example, 58285. They are studied in recreational mathematics where
palindromic numbers with special properties are sought. A palindromic
prime is a palindromic number that is a prime number.
Dates
Palindromic dates are of interest to recreational mathematicians and
numerologists, and sometimes generate comment in the general media.[6]
Whether or not a date is palindromic depends on the style in which it
is written. In the mm/dd/yyyy style, the most recently occurring
palindromic date was January 2, 2010 (01/02/2010), and the next one
will be on November 2, 2011 (11/02/2011). While in the dd/mm/yyyy
style, the 1st of February, 2010 (01/02/2010) would be one example.
Some dates have more than one palindromic form. For example, the date
September 29, 1929, can be written as a palindrome 3 ways. Without the
year, it's 9/29. With the year, it is 9/29/29 or 9/29/1929.
Acoustics
A palindrome in which a recorded phrase of speech sounds the same when
it is played backwards was discovered by composer John Oswald in 1974
while he was working on audio tape versions of the cut-up technique
using recorded readings by William S. Burroughs. Oswald discovered in
repeated instances of Burroughs speaking the phrase "I got" that the
recordings still sound like "I got" when played backwards.[7][8]
Music
Classical music
Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 47 in G is nicknamed "the Palindrome". The
third movement, minuet and trio is a musical palindrome. This clever
piece goes forward twice and backwards twice and arrives back at the
same place.
W.A. Mozart's Scherzo-Duetto di Mozart is played by one violinist as
written and the second with the same music inverted.
The interlude from Alban Berg's opera Lulu is a palindrome, as are
sections and pieces, in arch form, by many other composers, including
James Tenney, and most famously Béla Bartók. George Crumb also used
musical palindrome to text paint the Federico Garcia Lorca poem
"¿Porque nací?", the first movement of three in his fourth book of
Madrigals. Igor Stravinsky's final composition, The Owl and the Pussy
Cat, is a palindrome.
The first movement from Constant Lambert's ballet Horoscope (1938) is
titled "Palindromic Prelude". Lambert claimed that the theme was
dictated to him by the ghost of Bernard van Dieren, who had died in
1936.[9]
British composer Robert Simpson also composed music in the palindrome
or based on palindromic themes; the slow movement of his Symphony No.
2 is a palindrome, as is the slow movement of his String Quartet No.
1. His hour-long String Quartet No. 9 consists of thirty-two
variations and a fugue on a palindromic theme of Haydn (from the
minuet of his Symphony No. 47). All of Simpson's thirty-two variations
are themselves palindromic, equating to a remarkable feat in string
quartet writing.
The music of Anton Webern is often imbued with palindromes. Webern,
who had studied the music of the Renaissance composer Heinrich Isaac,
was extremely interested in symmetries in music, be they horizontal or
vertical. For one of the most famous examples of horizontal or linear
symmetry in Webern's music, one should look no further than the first
phrase in the second movement of the symphony, Op. 21. In one of the
most striking examples of vertical symmetry, the second movement of
the Piano Variations, Op. 27, Webern arranges every pitch of this
dodecaphonic work around the central pitch axis of A4. From this, each
downward reaching interval is replicated exactly in the opposite
direction. For example, a G-sharp3—13 half-steps down from A4—is
replicated as a B-flat5—13 half-steps above.
In classical music, a crab canon is a canon in which one line of the
melody is reversed in time and pitch from the other.
Popular music
Hüsker Dü's concept album Zen Arcade contains the songs "Reoccurring
Dreams" and "Dreams Reoccurring", the latter of which appears earlier
on the album but is actually the intro of the former song played in
reverse. Similarly, The Stone Roses' first album contains the songs
"Waterfall" and "Don't Stop", the latter of which is essentially the
former performed backwards.
The title track of the 1992 album entitled UFO Tofu by Béla Fleck and
the Flecktones is said by its composer to be a musical palindrome.
In 1992, the grunge band Soundgarden released an EP called
Satanoscillatemymetallicsonatas or SOMMS; the title is a palindrome
and puns on the supposed connection between the Devil and heavy metal
music.
In 2003 the city of San Diego, California commissioned sculptor Roman
DeSalvo and composer Joseph Waters to create a public artwork in the
form of a safety railing on the 25th Street overpass at F and 25th
Streets. The result, Crab Carillon, is a set of 488 tuned chimes that
can be played by pedestrians as they cross the overpass. Each chime is
tuned to the note of a melody, composed by Waters. The melody is in
the form of a palindrome, to accommodate walking in either direction.
[10]
The song "I Palindrome I", by They Might Be Giants, features
palindromic lyrics and imagery. The 27-word bridge is word-
symmetrical.
"Weird Al" Yankovic's song "Bob", from his 2003 album Poodle Hat,
consists of rhyming palindromes and parodies the Bob Dylan song
"Subterranean Homesick Blues".
The 2007 re-release of Yoko Ono's song "No, No, No" is credited simply
to "Ono", making the artist–title combination a palindrome.
Baby Gramps is known for songs where the lyrics are made up of
palindromes.
The Fall of Troy made a song with the famous palindrome "A Man, A
Plan, A Canal, Panama" as the title.
The first and last tracks on Andrew Bird's album Noble Beast form a
palindrome ("Oh No" and "On Ho!") and the seventh track is a
palindrome in itself: "Ouo". He has also mentioned palindromes in
earlier music, giving his songs names like "11:11" "T'N'T" and "Fake
Palindromes" (although the last title is not a palindrome itself). He
also mentions palindromes in the lyrics of the song "I" and the "I"
redux "Imitosis".
"Starálfur", from Sigur Rós's Ágætis byrjun has the strings part
palindrome.
Long palindromes
The longest palindromic word in the Oxford English Dictionary is the
onomatopoeic tattarrattat, coined by James Joyce in Ulysses (1922) for
a knock on the door. The Guinness Book of Records gives the title to
detartrated, the past tense of detartrate, a somewhat contrived
chemical term meaning to remove tartrates. Rotavator, a trademarked
name for an agricultural machine, is often listed in dictionaries. The
term redivider is used by some writers but appears to be an invented
term—only redivide and redivision appear in the Shorter Oxford
Dictionary. Malayalam, an Indian language, is of equal length
(strictly, this name should be spelt either Malayaalam or Malayālam,
as the next to last vowel is long). Another aspect of the word
"malayalam" is that it stays a letter palindrome if it is written in
any phonetic script,[citation needed] like devanagari.
The Finnish word saippuakivikauppias (soapstone vendor) is claimed to
be the world's longest palindromic word in everyday use. A meaningful
derivative from it is saippuakalasalakauppias (soapdish bootlegger).
An even longer effort is saippuakuppinippukauppias (soap dish
wholesale vendor).
The American comedian Demetri Martin composed a 224-word palindromic
poem entitled "Dammit I'm Mad", the title itself being a palindrome.
[11]
Biological structures
Main article: Palindromic sequence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindromic_sequence
Palindrome of DNA structure
1. Palindrome, 2. Loop, 3. StemIn most genomes or sets of genetic
instructions, palindromic motifs are found. However, the meaning of
palindrome in the context of genetics is slightly different from the
definition used for words and sentences. Since the DNA is formed by
two paired strands of nucleotides, and the nucleotides always pair in
the same way (Adenine (A) with Thymine (T), Cytosine (C) with Guanine
(G)), a (single-stranded) sequence of DNA is said to be a palindrome
if it is equal to its complementary sequence read backwards. For
example, the sequence ACCTAGGT is palindromic because its complement
is TGGATCCA, which is equal to the original sequence in reverse
complement.
A palindromic DNA sequence can form a hairpin. Palindromic motifs are
made by the order of the nucleotides that specify the complex
chemicals (proteins) which, as a result of those genetic instructions,
the cell is to produce. They have been specially researched in
bacterial chromosomes and in the so-called Bacterial Interspersed
Mosaic Elements (BIMEs) scattered over them. Recently a research
genome sequencing project discovered that many of the bases on the Y
chromosome are arranged as palindromes.[citation needed] A palindrome
structure allows the Y chromosome to repair itself by bending over at
the middle if one side is damaged.
It is believed that palindromes are also found frequently in proteins,
[12][13] but their role in the protein function is not clearly known.
It has recently[14] been suggested that the prevalence existence of
palindromes in peptides might be related to the prevalence of low-
complexity regions in proteins, as palindromes are frequently
associated with low-complexity sequences. Their prevalence might be
also related to an alpha helical formation propensity of these
sequences,[14] or in formation of proteins/protein complexes.[15]
Computation theory
In the automata theory, a set of all palindromes in a given alphabet
is a typical example of a language which is context-free, but not
regular. This means that it is theoretically impossible for a computer
with a finite amount of memory to reliably test for palindromes. (For
practical purposes with modern computers, this limitation would only
apply to incredibly long letter-sequences.)
Additionally, the set of palindromes cannot be reliably tested by a
deterministic pushdown automaton and is not LR(k) parseable. When
reading a palindrome from left-to-right, it is essentially impossible
to locate the "middle" until the entire word has been read completely.
Semordnilaps
Semordnilap is a name coined for a word or phrase that spells a
different word or phrase backwards. "Semordnilap" is itself
"palindromes" spelled backwards. According to author O.V. Michaelsen,
it was probably coined by logologist Dmitri A. Borgmann and appeared
in Oddities and Curiosities, annotated by Martin Gardner, 1961.
Semordnilaps are also known as volvograms,[16] heteropalindromes, semi-
palindromes, half-palindromes, reversgrams, mynoretehs, reversible
anagrams,[17] word reversals, or anadromes.[18] They have also
sometimes been called antigrams,[18] though this term now usually
refers to anagrams with opposing meanings.
These words are very useful in constructing palindromes; together,
each pair forms a palindrome, and they can be added on either side of
a shorter palindrome in order to extend it.
The longest single-word English examples contain eight letters:
stressed / desserts
samaroid (resembling a samara) / dioramas
rewarder / redrawer
departer / retraped (construction based on the fact that verb trape is
recorded as an alternative spelling of traipse)[19]
reporter / retroper (construction based on the fact that trope is
recorded as a verb, meaning "to furnish with tropes")[19]
The pair stratagem / mega tarts contains nine letters.
Other examples include:
was / saw
gateman / nametag
deliver / reviled
straw / warts
star / rats
lived / devil
live / evil
diaper / repaid
smart / trams
spit / tips
Non-English palindromes
Palindromes in languages that use an alphabetic writing system work in
essentially the same way as English palindromes. In languages that use
a writing system other than an alphabet (such as Chinese), a
palindrome is still a sequence of characters from that writing system
that remains the same when reversed, though the characters now
represent words rather than letters.
The treatment of diacritics varies. In languages such as Czech and
Spanish, letters with diacritics or accents (except tildes) are not
given a separate place in the alphabet, and thus preserve the
palindrome whether or not the repeated letter has an ornamentation.
However, in Danish and other Nordic languages, A and A with a ring (Å)
are distinct letters and must be mirrored exactly to be considered a
true palindrome.
The longest palindrome in the Dutch language, according to the Dutch
Guinness Book of World Records, is koortsmeetsysteemstrook, which
translates into English as thermometer. The Dutch Wikipedia[20]
states, however, that Hugo Brandt Corstius, in his book, Opperlandse
taal- en letterkunde, came up with the longest existing Dutch
palindrome—potstalmelkkoortspilstaalplaatslipstrookklemlatstop—which
has no definitive meaning, although it is a legitimate Dutch word.
However, the Dutch word "melkkoortspilstaalplaatslipstrookklem" is a
mixture of these words:milk, fever, lager, slip, strip, steel, plate,
clamp.
More examples of English palindromes
A dog! A panic in a pagoda!
Ah, Satan sees Natasha.
Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?
Do geese see God?
I prefer pi.
If I had a hi-fi.
Saw is as selfless as I was.
Mr. Owl ate my metal worm.
Never odd or even.
No devil lived on.
No, sir, away! A papaya war is on!
Red rum, sir, is murder.
Rise to vote, sir.
So many dynamos!
Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas!
See also
Ambigram http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambigram
Anagram http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anagram
Backmasking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backmasking
Constrained writing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constrained_writing
List of palindromic places http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_palindromic_places
Palindromic number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindromic_number
Palindromic polynomial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindromic_polynomial
Phonetic palindrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonetic_palindrome
Racecar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racecar
Reverse spelling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_spelling
References
^ Martin Gardner, Mathematical Circus, p. 250 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Gardner
^ Authors List of Great Palindromes, The Palindromist
http://www.realchange.org/pal/authors.htm#what
^ Noting the first exile of Napoleon to Elba
^ By Leigh Mercer, published in Notes and Queries, 13 Nov. 1948,
according to The Yale Book of Quotations, F. R. Shapiro, ed. (2006,
ISBN 0-300-10798-6).
^ IMDB Profile: Mike Kim, IMDB Profile: Mike Kim http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0453606/
^ "Party like it's 20/02/2002", BBC News, 20 February 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1831240.stm
^ Section titled "On Burroughs and Burrows ..." http://www.pfony.com/
^ Reversible audio cut-ups of William S. Burroughs' voice, including
an acoustic palindrome in example 5 (requires Flash)
http://www.pfony.com/burrows/index.html
^ Answers.com http://www.answers.com/topic/horoscope-ballet
^ City of San Diego Public Art website http://www.sandiego.gov/arts-culture/installations.shtml
^ Slate.com http://www.slate.com/id/2101150/sidebar/2101387/ent/2101353/
^ Ohno S (1990). "Intrinsic evolution of proteins. The role of
peptidic palindromes". Riv. Biol. 83 (2-3): 287–91, 405–10. PMID
2128128. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2128128
^ Giel-Pietraszuk M, Hoffmann M, Dolecka S, Rychlewski J, Barciszewski
J. Palindromes in proteins. J Protein Chem. 2003 February; 22(2):
109-13. Entrez Pubmed 12760415
^ a b Sheari A. et al. A tale of two symmetrical tails: structural and
functional characteristics of palindromes in proteins. BMC
Bioinformatics 2008, 9:274. Entrez Pubmed 18547401
^ Pinotsis N and Wilmanns, M; Protein assemblies with palindromic
structure motifs. Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences 2008,
65:2953-2956. Entrez Pubmed 18791850 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrez
^ Merriam-Webster's Open Dictionary
http://www3.merriam-webster.com/opendictionary/newword_search.php?word=volvogram
^ AskOxford: What is the word for a word which is another word spelt
backwards? http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutwords/palindromes
^ a b Anagrams FAQ Page - Are there any unusual varieties of anagram?
http://www.anagrammy.com/anagrams/faq3.html
^ a b Chambers English Dictionary, 7th Ed
^ nl:Palindroom http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindroom
External links
Palindromic Baby Names http://www.babynamefacts.com/namelists/list.php?id=18
List of English Semordnilaps http://kgfamily.com/files/semordnilaps.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindrome
Palindromes
From Wikiquote
(Redirected from Palindrome)
A palindrome is a word or a phrase that has the property of reading
the same in either direction. Spacing and punctuation do not matter.
1 Sourced 1.1 Palindromes 1.1.1 English1.1.2 Latin1.2 Quotes about
palindromes2 Unsourced 2.1 Palindromes 2.1.1 English2.1.2 French2.1.3
Portuguese2.1.4 Finnish2.1.5 Filipino3 References4 External links
Sourced
Palindromes
English
Able was I ere I saw Elba.
Apocryphal response of Napoleon when supposedly asked at St. Elba if
he could have eventually sacked London
Quoted in Mark Twain, The Galaxy, Vol. 1, p. 439[1]
Madam, I'm Adam.
Quoted in Mark Twain, The Galaxy, Vol. 1, p. 439[1]
A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!
Leigh Mercer, Notes and Queries, November 13, 1948
A man, a plan, a canoe, pasta, heros, rajahs, a coloratura, maps,
snipe, percale, macaroni, a gag, a banana bag, a tan, a tag, a banana
bag again (or a camel), a crepe, pins, Spam, a rut, a Rolo, cash, a
jar, sore hats, a peon, a canal -- Panama
Guy Steele, Common LISP: The Language, Second Edition, 1984, ISBN
1555580416, p.405 (computer-aided)
Latin
The Sator SquareSi Nummi immunis.
Translation (by William Camden): Give me my fee, and I warrant you
free.
Facetiously known as the "lawyer's motto"
Quoted in Mark Twain, The Galaxy, Vol. 1, p. 439[1]
Sator arepo tenet opera rotas.
Translation: The sower Arepo holds the wheels with effort.
Alternative translation: The sower Arepo leads with his hand (work)
the plough (wheels).
Known as the Sator Square
Quoted in Mark Twain, The Galaxy, Vol. 1, p. 439[1]
Quotes about palindromes
Unsourced
Palindromes
English
Neil, a trap! Sid is part alien!
God lives, evil dog!
Was it a rat I saw?
Sit on a potato pan, Otis.
No Roman a moron.
Mr. Owl ate my metal worm.
Madam, in Eden I'm Adam.
Tacocat
Racecar
Mae Stella Wade repapered a wallet seam
Never odd or even
Wet Stew
Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog!
Marge let Sarah see Shara's telegram.
Live dirt up a side track carted is a putrid evil.
Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo
Go home emo hog!
Hannah
Can I attain a C?
Don't nod
Satan oscilate my metalic sonatas
French
À Cuba, Anna a bu ça.
Translation: In Cuba, Anna has drunk that.
Gérard Durand
C'est sec.
Translation: It's dry.
Roger Cornaille
Eh ! ça va la vache ?
Translation: Hey! How's the cow?
Louise de Vilmorin
Élu par cette crapule.
Translation: Elected by this scum.
Charles Cros
En route je tourne.
Translation: On the way, I turn around.
Roger Cornaille
Et la marine va, papa, venir à Malte.
Translation: And the marine will, dad, come to Malta.
attributed to Victor Hugo
Il a l'âge légal, Ali.
Translation: He has the legal age, Ali.
Joseph Renaud
Portuguese
A grama é amarga.
Translation: The grass is sour.
Socorram-me, subi num ônibus em Marrocos.
Translation: Help me, I caught a bus in Morocco.
Ame o poema.
Translation: Love the poem.
Após a sopa.
Translation: After the soup.
Roma me tem amor.
Translation: Rome has love for me.
Seco de raiva, coloco no colo caviar e doces.
Translation: This sentence has a nonsense meaning in Portuguese, but
in English it literally means "Dried with anger, I put on my lap
caviar and sweeties.".
Ovo
Translation: Egg
A droga da gorda
Translation: The damn fat woman or The fat woman's drug.
Finnish
Saippuakauppias
Translation: (a) soap seller
Saippuakalasalakauppias
Translation: (an illegal) seller of soapfish
Saippuakivikauppias
Translation: (a) seller of soap blocks
Innostunut sonni
Translation: (an) Enthusiastic bull
Uupuva havupuu
Translation: a conifer which is getting tired ("tiring conifer")
Alle satasella
Translation: (I bought it) under a hundred (bank-note)
Filipino
Nasa Bayabasan
Translation: (a) in the guava trees
References
1.↑ a b c d Twain, Mark (1866). "Bosidevele No Droschdt". The Galaxy,
Vol. 1. Google Book Search. Retrieved on 2007-10-03.
http://books.google.com/books?id=-IMAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA439&dq=%22ere+i+saw+elba%22+date:1865-1866&num=30&as_brr=0#v=onepage&q=%22ere%20i%20saw%20elba%22%20date%3A1865-1866&f=false
Digital version: Twain, Mark (19 March 2007) [1866] (PDF). The Galaxy,
Vol. 1. W.C. and F.P. Church (original). pp. 755 pp.. Retrieved on
2007-10-03.
This page was last modified on 14 April 2010 at 09:45.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Palindrome
http://www.typepad.com/site/blogs/6a00e550089f96883301347fdefd14970c/post/6a00e550089f96883301347fdefd7d970c/edit
Neil, a trap! Sid is part alien!
...and I am Sid Harth
Palindrome
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the movie, see Palindromes (film). For the song and EP, see I
Palindrome I. For lists of palindromic words in various languages, see
Wiktionary:Appendix:Palindromic words. For the disease, see
Palindromic rheumatism.
A palindrome is a word, phrase, number or other sequence of units that
can be read the same way in either direction (the adjustment of
punctuation and spaces between words is generally permitted).
Composing literature in palindromes is an example of constrained
writing. The word "palindrome" was coined from Greek roots pálin
(πάλιν; "again") and drómos (δρóμος; "way, direction") by English
writer Ben Jonson in the 1600s. The actual Greek phrase to describe
the phenomenon is karkinikê epigrafê (καρκινική επιγραφή; crab
inscription), or simply karkiniêoi (καρκινιήοι; crabs), alluding to
the backward movement of crabs, like an inscription which can be read
backwards.
History
The Sator SquarePalindromes date back at least to 79 AD, as the
palindromic Latin word square "Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas" was
found as a graffito at Herculaneum, buried by ash in that year. This
palindrome is remarkable for the fact that it also reproduces itself
if one forms a word from the first letters, then the second letters
and so forth. Hence it can be arranged into a word square that reads
in four different ways: horizontally or vertically from either top
left to bottom right or bottom right to top left.
A palindrome with the same property is the Hebrew palindrome "We
explained the glutton who is in the honey was burned and
incinerated" (פרשנו רעבתן שבדבש נתבער ונשרף; PRShNW R`BTN ShBDBSh
NTB`R WNShRP or parasnu ra`avtan sheba'dvash nitba'er venisraf) by
Abraham ibn Ezra, referring to the halachic question as to whether a
fly landing in honey makes the honey treif.
פ ר ש נ ו
ר ע ב ת ן
ש ב ד ב ש
נ ת ב ע ר
ו נ ש ר ף
Another Latin palindrome, In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni ("We
go wandering at night and are consumed by fire"—In girum ire is
translated as "go wandering" instead of the literal "go in a circle",
cf. Italian andare in giro, "go strolling or wandering around"), was
said to describe the behavior of moths. It is likely from medieval
rather than ancient times.
Byzantine Greeks often inscribed the palindrome "Wash [the] sins not
only [the] face" Νιψον ανομηματα μη μοναν οψιν; Modern: Νίψον
ανομήματα μη μόναν όψιν; Nīpson anomēmata mē mōnan ōpsin, note ps is
the single Greek letter psi (Ψ)) on baptismal fonts. This is the font
at St. Mary's Church, Nottingham and also the font in the basilica of
St. Sophia, Constantinople, the font of St. Stephen d'Egres, Paris; at
St. Menin's Abbey, Orléans; at Dulwich College; and at the following
churches: Worlingsworth (Suffolk), Harlow (Essex), Knapton (Norfolk),
St Martin, Ludgate (London), and Hadleigh (Suffolk).
Palindromes in ancient Sanskrit
Palindromes of considerable complexity were experimented with in
Sanskrit poetry. An example which has been called "the most complex
and exquisite type of palindrome ever invented",[1] appears in the
19th canto of the 8th century epic poem śiśupāla-vadha by Magha. It
yields the same text if read forwards, backwards, down, or up:
sa-kA-ra-nA-nA-ra-kA-sa-
kA-ya-sA-da-da-sA-ya-kA
ra-sA-ha-vA vA-ha-sA-ra-
nA-da-vA-da-da-vA-da-nA.
(nA da vA da da vA da nA
ra sA ha vA vA ha sA ra
kA ya sA da da sA ya kA
sa kA ra nA nA ra kA sa)
in other words, it is numbers or letters that can be read backwards or
forwards (note: hyphen indicates continuation of same word). The last
four lines are an inversion of the first four and are not part of the
verse. They are only included here so that its properties can be more
easily discerned, as the up-and-down reading depends on re-reading the
text back up again in each column.
The stanza translates as:
[That army], which relished battle (rasAhavA) contained allies who
brought low the bodes and gaits of their various striving enemies
(sakAranAnArakAsakAyasAdadasAyakA), and in it the cries of the best of
mounts contended with musical instruments (vAhasAranAdavAdadavAdanA).
Types
Characters
The most familiar palindromes, in English at least, are character-by-
character: the written characters read the same backwards as forwards.
Some examples of palindromic words: civic, radar, level, rotator,
rotor, kayak, reviver, racecar, and redder.
Phrases
Palindromes often consist of a phrase or sentence ("Go hang a salami
I'm a lasagna hog.", "Was it a rat I saw?", "Step on no pets", "Sit on
a potato pan, Otis", "Lisa Bonet ate no basil", "Satan, oscillate my
metallic sonatas", "I roamed under it as a tired nude Maori," or the
exclamation "Dammit, I'm mad!"). Punctuation, capitalization, and
spacing are usually ignored, although some (such as "Rats live on no
evil star") include the spacing.[2]
Famous quotations
Three famous English palindromes are "Able was I ere I saw Elba"[3]
(which is also palindromic with respect to spacing), "A man, a plan, a
canal, Panama!",[4] and "Madam, I'm Adam".
A possible palindromic reply to the last of the above is "Name no one,
man."[citation needed]
Names
Some people have names that are palindromes. Lon Nol (1913–1985) was
Prime Minister of Cambodia. Nisio Isin is a Japanese novelist and
manga writer, whose real name (西尾 維新, Nishio Ishin) is a palindrome
when romanized using Kunrei-shiki or Nihon-shiki (it is often written
as NisiOisiN to emphasize this). Some changed their name in order to
be a palindrome (one example is actor Robert Trebor), while others
were given a palindromic name at birth (such as philologist Revilo P.
Oliver and Korean-American Mike Kim).[5]
Words
Some palindromes use words as units rather than letters. Examples are
"Fall leaves after leaves fall", "First Ladies rule the State and
state the rule: ladies first" and "Girl, bathing on Bikini, eyeing
boy, sees boy eyeing bikini on bathing girl". The command "Level,
madam, level!", composed only of words that are themselves
palindromes, is both a character-by-character and a word-by-word
palindrome.
Lines
Still other palindromes take the line as the unit. The poem
Doppelgänger, composed by James A. Lindon, is an example.
The dialogue "Crab Canon" in Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach
is nearly a line-by-line palindrome. The second half of the dialog
consists, with some very minor changes, of the same lines as the first
half, but in reverse order and spoken by the opposite characters
(i.e., lines spoken by Achilles in the first half are spoken by the
Tortoise in the second, and vice versa). In the middle is a non-
symmetrical line spoken by the Crab, who enters and spouts some
nonsense, apparently triggering the reversal. The structure is modeled
after the musical form known as crab canon, in particular the canon a
2 cancrizans of Johann Sebastian Bach's The Musical Offering.
Molecular biology
Main article: Palindromic sequence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindromic_sequence
Restriction enzymes recognize a specific sequence of nucleotides and
produce a double-stranded cut in the DNA. While recognition sequences
vary widely, with lengths between 4 and 8 nucleotides, many of them
are palindromic, which correspond to nitrogenous base sequences
between complementary strands, which, when read from the 5' to 3'
direction, are identical sequences.
Numbers
Main article: Palindromic number
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindromic_number
A palindromic number is a number whose digits, with decimal
representation usually assumed, are the same read backwards, for
example, 58285. They are studied in recreational mathematics where
palindromic numbers with special properties are sought. A palindromic
prime is a palindromic number that is a prime number.
Dates
Palindromic dates are of interest to recreational mathematicians and
numerologists, and sometimes generate comment in the general media.[6]
Whether or not a date is palindromic depends on the style in which it
is written. In the mm/dd/yyyy style, the most recently occurring
palindromic date was January 2, 2010 (01/02/2010), and the next one
will be on November 2, 2011 (11/02/2011). While in the dd/mm/yyyy
style, the 1st of February, 2010 (01/02/2010) would be one example.
Some dates have more than one palindromic form. For example, the date
September 29, 1929, can be written as a palindrome 3 ways. Without the
year, it's 9/29. With the year, it is 9/29/29 or 9/29/1929.
Acoustics
A palindrome in which a recorded phrase of speech sounds the same when
it is played backwards was discovered by composer John Oswald in 1974
while he was working on audio tape versions of the cut-up technique
using recorded readings by William S. Burroughs. Oswald discovered in
repeated instances of Burroughs speaking the phrase "I got" that the
recordings still sound like "I got" when played backwards.[7][8]
Music
Classical music
Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 47 in G is nicknamed "the Palindrome". The
third movement, minuet and trio is a musical palindrome. This clever
piece goes forward twice and backwards twice and arrives back at the
same place.
W.A. Mozart's Scherzo-Duetto di Mozart is played by one violinist as
written and the second with the same music inverted.
The interlude from Alban Berg's opera Lulu is a palindrome, as are
sections and pieces, in arch form, by many other composers, including
James Tenney, and most famously Béla Bartók. George Crumb also used
musical palindrome to text paint the Federico Garcia Lorca poem
"¿Porque nací?", the first movement of three in his fourth book of
Madrigals. Igor Stravinsky's final composition, The Owl and the Pussy
Cat, is a palindrome.
The first movement from Constant Lambert's ballet Horoscope (1938) is
titled "Palindromic Prelude". Lambert claimed that the theme was
dictated to him by the ghost of Bernard van Dieren, who had died in
1936.[9]
British composer Robert Simpson also composed music in the palindrome
or based on palindromic themes; the slow movement of his Symphony No.
2 is a palindrome, as is the slow movement of his String Quartet No.
1. His hour-long String Quartet No. 9 consists of thirty-two
variations and a fugue on a palindromic theme of Haydn (from the
minuet of his Symphony No. 47). All of Simpson's thirty-two variations
are themselves palindromic, equating to a remarkable feat in string
quartet writing.
The music of Anton Webern is often imbued with palindromes. Webern,
who had studied the music of the Renaissance composer Heinrich Isaac,
was extremely interested in symmetries in music, be they horizontal or
vertical. For one of the most famous examples of horizontal or linear
symmetry in Webern's music, one should look no further than the first
phrase in the second movement of the symphony, Op. 21. In one of the
most striking examples of vertical symmetry, the second movement of
the Piano Variations, Op. 27, Webern arranges every pitch of this
dodecaphonic work around the central pitch axis of A4. From this, each
downward reaching interval is replicated exactly in the opposite
direction. For example, a G-sharp3—13 half-steps down from A4—is
replicated as a B-flat5—13 half-steps above.
In classical music, a crab canon is a canon in which one line of the
melody is reversed in time and pitch from the other.
Popular music
Hüsker Dü's concept album Zen Arcade contains the songs "Reoccurring
Dreams" and "Dreams Reoccurring", the latter of which appears earlier
on the album but is actually the intro of the former song played in
reverse. Similarly, The Stone Roses' first album contains the songs
"Waterfall" and "Don't Stop", the latter of which is essentially the
former performed backwards.
The title track of the 1992 album entitled UFO Tofu by Béla Fleck and
the Flecktones is said by its composer to be a musical palindrome.
In 1992, the grunge band Soundgarden released an EP called
Satanoscillatemymetallicsonatas or SOMMS; the title is a palindrome
and puns on the supposed connection between the Devil and heavy metal
music.
In 2003 the city of San Diego, California commissioned sculptor Roman
DeSalvo and composer Joseph Waters to create a public artwork in the
form of a safety railing on the 25th Street overpass at F and 25th
Streets. The result, Crab Carillon, is a set of 488 tuned chimes that
can be played by pedestrians as they cross the overpass. Each chime is
tuned to the note of a melody, composed by Waters. The melody is in
the form of a palindrome, to accommodate walking in either direction.
[10]
The song "I Palindrome I", by They Might Be Giants, features
palindromic lyrics and imagery. The 27-word bridge is word-
symmetrical.
"Weird Al" Yankovic's song "Bob", from his 2003 album Poodle Hat,
consists of rhyming palindromes and parodies the Bob Dylan song
"Subterranean Homesick Blues".
The 2007 re-release of Yoko Ono's song "No, No, No" is credited simply
to "Ono", making the artist–title combination a palindrome.
Baby Gramps is known for songs where the lyrics are made up of
palindromes.
The Fall of Troy made a song with the famous palindrome "A Man, A
Plan, A Canal, Panama" as the title.
The first and last tracks on Andrew Bird's album Noble Beast form a
palindrome ("Oh No" and "On Ho!") and the seventh track is a
palindrome in itself: "Ouo". He has also mentioned palindromes in
earlier music, giving his songs names like "11:11" "T'N'T" and "Fake
Palindromes" (although the last title is not a palindrome itself). He
also mentions palindromes in the lyrics of the song "I" and the "I"
redux "Imitosis".
"Starálfur", from Sigur Rós's Ágætis byrjun has the strings part
palindrome.
Long palindromes
The longest palindromic word in the Oxford English Dictionary is the
onomatopoeic tattarrattat, coined by James Joyce in Ulysses (1922) for
a knock on the door. The Guinness Book of Records gives the title to
detartrated, the past tense of detartrate, a somewhat contrived
chemical term meaning to remove tartrates. Rotavator, a trademarked
name for an agricultural machine, is often listed in dictionaries. The
term redivider is used by some writers but appears to be an invented
term—only redivide and redivision appear in the Shorter Oxford
Dictionary. Malayalam, an Indian language, is of equal length
(strictly, this name should be spelt either Malayaalam or Malayālam,
as the next to last vowel is long). Another aspect of the word
"malayalam" is that it stays a letter palindrome if it is written in
any phonetic script,[citation needed] like devanagari.
The Finnish word saippuakivikauppias (soapstone vendor) is claimed to
be the world's longest palindromic word in everyday use. A meaningful
derivative from it is saippuakalasalakauppias (soapdish bootlegger).
An even longer effort is saippuakuppinippukauppias (soap dish
wholesale vendor).
The American comedian Demetri Martin composed a 224-word palindromic
poem entitled "Dammit I'm Mad", the title itself being a palindrome.
[11]
Biological structures
Main article: Palindromic sequence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindromic_sequence
Palindrome of DNA structure
1. Palindrome, 2. Loop, 3. StemIn most genomes or sets of genetic
instructions, palindromic motifs are found. However, the meaning of
palindrome in the context of genetics is slightly different from the
definition used for words and sentences. Since the DNA is formed by
two paired strands of nucleotides, and the nucleotides always pair in
the same way (Adenine (A) with Thymine (T), Cytosine (C) with Guanine
(G)), a (single-stranded) sequence of DNA is said to be a palindrome
if it is equal to its complementary sequence read backwards. For
example, the sequence ACCTAGGT is palindromic because its complement
is TGGATCCA, which is equal to the original sequence in reverse
complement.
A palindromic DNA sequence can form a hairpin. Palindromic motifs are
made by the order of the nucleotides that specify the complex
chemicals (proteins) which, as a result of those genetic instructions,
the cell is to produce. They have been specially researched in
bacterial chromosomes and in the so-called Bacterial Interspersed
Mosaic Elements (BIMEs) scattered over them. Recently a research
genome sequencing project discovered that many of the bases on the Y
chromosome are arranged as palindromes.[citation needed] A palindrome
structure allows the Y chromosome to repair itself by bending over at
the middle if one side is damaged.
It is believed that palindromes are also found frequently in proteins,
[12][13] but their role in the protein function is not clearly known.
It has recently[14] been suggested that the prevalence existence of
palindromes in peptides might be related to the prevalence of low-
complexity regions in proteins, as palindromes are frequently
associated with low-complexity sequences. Their prevalence might be
also related to an alpha helical formation propensity of these
sequences,[14] or in formation of proteins/protein complexes.[15]
Computation theory
In the automata theory, a set of all palindromes in a given alphabet
is a typical example of a language which is context-free, but not
regular. This means that it is theoretically impossible for a computer
with a finite amount of memory to reliably test for palindromes. (For
practical purposes with modern computers, this limitation would only
apply to incredibly long letter-sequences.)
Additionally, the set of palindromes cannot be reliably tested by a
deterministic pushdown automaton and is not LR(k) parseable. When
reading a palindrome from left-to-right, it is essentially impossible
to locate the "middle" until the entire word has been read completely.
Semordnilaps
Semordnilap is a name coined for a word or phrase that spells a
different word or phrase backwards. "Semordnilap" is itself
"palindromes" spelled backwards. According to author O.V. Michaelsen,
it was probably coined by logologist Dmitri A. Borgmann and appeared
in Oddities and Curiosities, annotated by Martin Gardner, 1961.
Semordnilaps are also known as volvograms,[16] heteropalindromes, semi-
palindromes, half-palindromes, reversgrams, mynoretehs, reversible
anagrams,[17] word reversals, or anadromes.[18] They have also
sometimes been called antigrams,[18] though this term now usually
refers to anagrams with opposing meanings.
These words are very useful in constructing palindromes; together,
each pair forms a palindrome, and they can be added on either side of
a shorter palindrome in order to extend it.
The longest single-word English examples contain eight letters:
stressed / desserts
samaroid (resembling a samara) / dioramas
rewarder / redrawer
departer / retraped (construction based on the fact that verb trape is
recorded as an alternative spelling of traipse)[19]
reporter / retroper (construction based on the fact that trope is
recorded as a verb, meaning "to furnish with tropes")[19]
The pair stratagem / mega tarts contains nine letters.
Other examples include:
was / saw
gateman / nametag
deliver / reviled
straw / warts
star / rats
lived / devil
live / evil
diaper / repaid
smart / trams
spit / tips
Non-English palindromes
Palindromes in languages that use an alphabetic writing system work in
essentially the same way as English palindromes. In languages that use
a writing system other than an alphabet (such as Chinese), a
palindrome is still a sequence of characters from that writing system
that remains the same when reversed, though the characters now
represent words rather than letters.
The treatment of diacritics varies. In languages such as Czech and
Spanish, letters with diacritics or accents (except tildes) are not
given a separate place in the alphabet, and thus preserve the
palindrome whether or not the repeated letter has an ornamentation.
However, in Danish and other Nordic languages, A and A with a ring (Å)
are distinct letters and must be mirrored exactly to be considered a
true palindrome.
The longest palindrome in the Dutch language, according to the Dutch
Guinness Book of World Records, is koortsmeetsysteemstrook, which
translates into English as thermometer. The Dutch Wikipedia[20]
states, however, that Hugo Brandt Corstius, in his book, Opperlandse
taal- en letterkunde, came up with the longest existing Dutch
palindrome—potstalmelkkoortspilstaalplaatslipstrookklemlatstop—which
has no definitive meaning, although it is a legitimate Dutch word.
However, the Dutch word "melkkoortspilstaalplaatslipstrookklem" is a
mixture of these words:milk, fever, lager, slip, strip, steel, plate,
clamp.
More examples of English palindromes
A dog! A panic in a pagoda!
Ah, Satan sees Natasha.
Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?
Do geese see God?
I prefer pi.
If I had a hi-fi.
Saw is as selfless as I was.
Mr. Owl ate my metal worm.
Never odd or even.
No devil lived on.
No, sir, away! A papaya war is on!
Red rum, sir, is murder.
Rise to vote, sir.
So many dynamos!
Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas!
See also
Ambigram http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambigram
Anagram http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anagram
Backmasking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backmasking
Constrained writing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constrained_writing
List of palindromic places http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_palindromic_places
Palindromic number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindromic_number
Palindromic polynomial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindromic_polynomial
Phonetic palindrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonetic_palindrome
Racecar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racecar
Reverse spelling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_spelling
References
^ Martin Gardner, Mathematical Circus, p. 250 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Gardner
^ Authors List of Great Palindromes, The Palindromist
http://www.realchange.org/pal/authors.htm#what
^ Noting the first exile of Napoleon to Elba
^ By Leigh Mercer, published in Notes and Queries, 13 Nov. 1948,
according to The Yale Book of Quotations, F. R. Shapiro, ed. (2006,
ISBN 0-300-10798-6).
^ IMDB Profile: Mike Kim, IMDB Profile: Mike Kim http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0453606/
^ "Party like it's 20/02/2002", BBC News, 20 February 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1831240.stm
^ Section titled "On Burroughs and Burrows ..." http://www.pfony.com/
^ Reversible audio cut-ups of William S. Burroughs' voice, including
an acoustic palindrome in example 5 (requires Flash)
http://www.pfony.com/burrows/index.html
^ Answers.com http://www.answers.com/topic/horoscope-ballet
^ City of San Diego Public Art website http://www.sandiego.gov/arts-culture/installations.shtml
^ Slate.com http://www.slate.com/id/2101150/sidebar/2101387/ent/2101353/
^ Ohno S (1990). "Intrinsic evolution of proteins. The role of
peptidic palindromes". Riv. Biol. 83 (2-3): 287–91, 405–10. PMID
2128128. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2128128
^ Giel-Pietraszuk M, Hoffmann M, Dolecka S, Rychlewski J, Barciszewski
J. Palindromes in proteins. J Protein Chem. 2003 February; 22(2):
109-13. Entrez Pubmed 12760415
^ a b Sheari A. et al. A tale of two symmetrical tails: structural and
functional characteristics of palindromes in proteins. BMC
Bioinformatics 2008, 9:274. Entrez Pubmed 18547401
^ Pinotsis N and Wilmanns, M; Protein assemblies with palindromic
structure motifs. Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences 2008,
65:2953-2956. Entrez Pubmed 18791850 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrez
^ Merriam-Webster's Open Dictionary
http://www3.merriam-webster.com/opendictionary/newword_search.php?word=volvogram
^ AskOxford: What is the word for a word which is another word spelt
backwards? http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutwords/palindromes
^ a b Anagrams FAQ Page - Are there any unusual varieties of anagram?
http://www.anagrammy.com/anagrams/faq3.html
^ a b Chambers English Dictionary, 7th Ed
^ nl:Palindroom http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindroom
External links
Palindromic Baby Names http://www.babynamefacts.com/namelists/list.php?id=18
List of English Semordnilaps http://kgfamily.com/files/semordnilaps.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindrome
Palindromes
From Wikiquote
(Redirected from Palindrome)
A palindrome is a word or a phrase that has the property of reading
the same in either direction. Spacing and punctuation do not matter.
1 Sourced 1.1 Palindromes 1.1.1 English1.1.2 Latin1.2 Quotes about
palindromes2 Unsourced 2.1 Palindromes 2.1.1 English2.1.2 French2.1.3
Portuguese2.1.4 Finnish2.1.5 Filipino3 References4 External links
Sourced
Palindromes
English
Able was I ere I saw Elba.
Apocryphal response of Napoleon when supposedly asked at St. Elba if
he could have eventually sacked London
Quoted in Mark Twain, The Galaxy, Vol. 1, p. 439[1]
Madam, I'm Adam.
Quoted in Mark Twain, The Galaxy, Vol. 1, p. 439[1]
A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!
Leigh Mercer, Notes and Queries, November 13, 1948
A man, a plan, a canoe, pasta, heros, rajahs, a coloratura, maps,
snipe, percale, macaroni, a gag, a banana bag, a tan, a tag, a banana
bag again (or a camel), a crepe, pins, Spam, a rut, a Rolo, cash, a
jar, sore hats, a peon, a canal -- Panama
Guy Steele, Common LISP: The Language, Second Edition, 1984, ISBN
1555580416, p.405 (computer-aided)
Latin
The Sator SquareSi Nummi immunis.
Translation (by William Camden): Give me my fee, and I warrant you
free.
Facetiously known as the "lawyer's motto"
Quoted in Mark Twain, The Galaxy, Vol. 1, p. 439[1]
Sator arepo tenet opera rotas.
Translation: The sower Arepo holds the wheels with effort.
Alternative translation: The sower Arepo leads with his hand (work)
the plough (wheels).
Known as the Sator Square
Quoted in Mark Twain, The Galaxy, Vol. 1, p. 439[1]
Quotes about palindromes
Unsourced
Palindromes
English
Neil, a trap! Sid is part alien!
God lives, evil dog!
Was it a rat I saw?
Sit on a potato pan, Otis.
No Roman a moron.
Mr. Owl ate my metal worm.
Madam, in Eden I'm Adam.
Tacocat
Racecar
Mae Stella Wade repapered a wallet seam
Never odd or even
Wet Stew
Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog!
Marge let Sarah see Shara's telegram.
Live dirt up a side track carted is a putrid evil.
Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo
Go home emo hog!
Hannah
Can I attain a C?
Don't nod
Satan oscilate my metalic sonatas
French
À Cuba, Anna a bu ça.
Translation: In Cuba, Anna has drunk that.
Gérard Durand
C'est sec.
Translation: It's dry.
Roger Cornaille
Eh ! ça va la vache ?
Translation: Hey! How's the cow?
Louise de Vilmorin
Élu par cette crapule.
Translation: Elected by this scum.
Charles Cros
En route je tourne.
Translation: On the way, I turn around.
Roger Cornaille
Et la marine va, papa, venir à Malte.
Translation: And the marine will, dad, come to Malta.
attributed to Victor Hugo
Il a l'âge légal, Ali.
Translation: He has the legal age, Ali.
Joseph Renaud
Portuguese
A grama é amarga.
Translation: The grass is sour.
Socorram-me, subi num ônibus em Marrocos.
Translation: Help me, I caught a bus in Morocco.
Ame o poema.
Translation: Love the poem.
Após a sopa.
Translation: After the soup.
Roma me tem amor.
Translation: Rome has love for me.
Seco de raiva, coloco no colo caviar e doces.
Translation: This sentence has a nonsense meaning in Portuguese, but
in English it literally means "Dried with anger, I put on my lap
caviar and sweeties.".
Ovo
Translation: Egg
A droga da gorda
Translation: The damn fat woman or The fat woman's drug.
Finnish
Saippuakauppias
Translation: (a) soap seller
Saippuakalasalakauppias
Translation: (an illegal) seller of soapfish
Saippuakivikauppias
Translation: (a) seller of soap blocks
Innostunut sonni
Translation: (an) Enthusiastic bull
Uupuva havupuu
Translation: a conifer which is getting tired ("tiring conifer")
Alle satasella
Translation: (I bought it) under a hundred (bank-note)
Filipino
Nasa Bayabasan
Translation: (a) in the guava trees
References
1.↑ a b c d Twain, Mark (1866). "Bosidevele No Droschdt". The Galaxy,
Vol. 1. Google Book Search. Retrieved on 2007-10-03.
http://books.google.com/books?id=-IMAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA439&dq=%22ere+i+saw+elba%22+date:1865-1866&num=30&as_brr=0#v=onepage&q=%22ere%20i%20saw%20elba%22%20date%3A1865-1866&f=false
Digital version: Twain, Mark (19 March 2007) [1866] (PDF). The Galaxy,
Vol. 1. W.C. and F.P. Church (original). pp. 755 pp.. Retrieved on
2007-10-03.
This page was last modified on 14 April 2010 at 09:45.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Palindrome
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Neil, a trap! Sid is part alien!
...and I am Sid Harth