Original Palindromes Oldest

It all started with gnostic, an unlikely word for a palindrome. That lead to a call for music: “elicit song gnostic ile.” Next up, ileitis, an inflammation of the ileum. “Sit. I elicit song. Gnostic ileitis.” Interesting, but not compelling. Tried colon next: colon no-loc. With the intestinal theme, local anesthetic seemed possible. I stopped there. Something about colon-gnostic just sounds right.

The story began with a gemstone trader, Evil Ed. Despite his nickname, he wasn't all bad. During a spell in prison, he discovered an ability to produce wonderful artworks. This became a great comfort to his long-suffering wife, Meg.

Looking back at some of my earlier work, I started with an intermediate result:  snog aw wagons. As before, that lead petered out, but then I tried flagons. Ah: snog Alf flagons. I quickly added “plug gulp” in the middle and kept going with one association after another. Obviously, this is a list of tasks, some of them rather odd. On the other hand, my To Do lists are often cryptic to others.

A highly organized person would tick off each item in order from the left. The list ends, perhaps badly, at the DOT in Oregon, Oklahoma or Ohio.

A Redditer posted “I” as a palindrome in the palindromes sub-reddit. That's silly. Every letter of the alphabet looks like a palindrome, but isn't. While “A” and “I” are both words, they don't count as palindromes. I wanted to comment in a way that suggested “I” is not a palindrome. My first idea, “E. M. Ordni lap-ons no palindrome” contained the literal message but didn't feel satisying. I played with the middle until I came up with this variant. It’s more subtle and slightly more coherent.

This is another Reddit-inspired work. The original poster said "Wow Bob wow." I thought of what my college roommate, Dr. Jon P. Dowling, called a "palindromic canon." WOW MOM is not really a palindrome, but if you rotate it on the page around the middle space, it reads exactly the same at 180 degrees and again at 360 degrees. Instead of just submitting WOW, MOM, WOW, I decided to expand it and include a suggestion to experience the magic of rotation. By the way, Sir Richard Burton is famous for many reasons, including for saying "yas" instead of yes; he spoke like that long before social media and the current usage.

I was browsing the palindromes at mockok.com and found the comments on a palindrome pattern that Timi Imit calls “multiple middles.” One of the more famous patterns is “Eva, can I ... in a cave?” Replace the three dots with any palindromic phrase that fits the grammar of the question. For example, “Eva, can I dump mud in a cave?”

My original palindrome, “Pu, can I snort celeb electrons in a cup?” has a similar pattern. So I decided to work on a few examples of this pattern. Some aim for a longer middle. Others simply use ananym pairs, the two different words that are the reverse of each other. I used the Franklin’s Palindromedary Ananym list to find some pairs that worked. In two cases I added the word “a” in the middle for better grammar. Many more possibilities remain, including creating original multi-middle patterns.

Pu, can I... pattern

Pu, can I... pattern

Pu, can I... pattern

Pu, can I... pattern

Pu, can I... pattern

Pu, can I... pattern

Another famous multi-middle palindrome pattern is “Are hot ... to Hera?” The middle is two words. The first word is usually a plural, either literal or implied. The second word is a descriptive noun, often invoking an emotional response to the first word. Here’s one: “Are hot bards drab to Hera?” Because all the examples I can find of this pattern use ananyms, I went to the Ananym list in Franklin’s Palindromedary. I did not exhaust the list by any means. I also see huge opportunities to expand this pattern beyond two-word ananyms.

Pattern: Are hot ... to Hera?

Pattern: Are hot ... to Hera?

Pattern: Are hot ... to Hera?

Pattern: Are hot ... to Hera?

Pattern: Are hot ... to Hera?

Pattern: Are hot ... to Hera?

Pattern: Are hot ... to Hera?

This is just my silly riff on a much better and longer palindrome by Lloyd Wood. His original will be in the upcoming anthology, “Cia, So Manic in a Mosaic.”