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Joined: Mar 2009
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Hello,
Someone asked me the following, and I couldn't find it anywhere--so thought I would check the collective knowledge:

"Palindromes are the word and sentences that are the same forwards and backwards--mom,dad, bob,etc. Is there a word for words that when flipped upside down turn into another word? For example: WOW/MOM, PIP/bib "

Any thoughts?

Mike

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If there is such a word you might find it here

http://onelook.com/?w=*&loc=revfp2&clue=word+upside+down

...if you're determined and patient


dalehileman
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dale, why do you continue to do this when you know, by now, you have a better chance at OneLook by limiting your search string. in this case, you'd be better off with 'upside down' because of all the useless hits you'll generate with 'word'.

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mrbaldwin,

Scott Kim used to do a lot of these for Discover Magazine. He called them "inversions."

Douglas Hofstadter also had a column in Scientific American where he posted some of Scott's work. He called them ambigrams.

http://www.scottkim.com/inversions/index.html

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there are many types of ambigrams, link ; those which form different words when turned upside-down are called rotational ambigrams. e.g., the abbrev. for down, dn, yields up.

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whitney this one is quite interesting. You can stop the movement at the intersection of the diagonals when it drives you crazy. (it quickly does)

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Mike,
I used to really love admiring these things. I mentioned that you might find some examples in old issues of Discovery Magazine. Also, you can find a few in Hofstadter's old columns in Sci Am titled "Metamagical Themas" (an anagram of his predecessor, Martin Gardner's column "Mathematical Games"). Also DH had a few books, "Goedel, Escher, Bach," for example, that has some, IIRC. This one also contains other kinds of related ideas. I actually read it, but I think it would be nice to browse as a coffee table book.




Last edited by TheFallibleFiend; 04/02/09 01:27 PM.
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speaking of coffee table books, "Metamagical Themas" were collected in an 800-page tome, which I picked up a few years back at a used book store (I'm still wading through these).

here's a link to what we're on about: ambigrams by Hofstadter

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Would go well with a book of Escher prints.

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I've been trying to get through I Am a Strange Loop by Hofstadter, but the math in just puts me to sleep. great concepts(not all of which I agree with), but.


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