It’s summer time, but that doesn’t mean my kids have to stop using their brains. Remember that cool “Puzzle a Day” calendar I told you about in January? It’s still on the kitchen table, and now my kids have more time to do the puzzles!
I must admit, sometimes the vocabulary from the calendar confuses us. We discussed many baffling terms from the puzzles over pasta and salad one night when we were finally sitting down together to eat. We pondered questions like:
What’s the difference between an acrostic and an acronym?
Have you ever heard of an anagram?
What the heck is a rebus?
Such is the conversation in a word nerd’s home. 🙂
Of course, I HAD to clear this up for my family, and you. So here goes, some essential vocab all puzzle people and word nerds should know:
- Acronym- a word formed from the first letters of each one of the words in a phrase, such as scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus). I use acronyms to help me make my various online passwords. (e.g. ILBbaICL = I like big books and I cannot lie.)
- Acrostic– a composition, usually in verse, in which sets of letters (such as the initial letters of the lines) taken in order form a word or phrase; look at this great example from my Facebook friend Jeanette Duwe:
- Anagram- a word or phrase made by changing the order of the letters in another word or phrase (from Greek anagrammatisimos to transpose letters)
I found these funny anagrams at www.fun-with-words.com/anagrams
Dormitory – – dirty room
The eyes – – they see
Conversation – voices rant on
- Homophone– a word that is pronounced like another word but is different in meaning, origin, or spelling.
Mnemonic – see below and Pneumonic- related to the lungs
Their, there, and they’re
- Mnemonic from Greek mimneskesthai– to remember; adj – assisting memory; noun – a device that helps people remember something.
My very excellent mother just served us nachos helps many children remember the planets in order from the sun. (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.) I remember when the mnemonic ended with “nine pizzas.” So sorry, Pluto.
- Rebus– a riddle or puzzle made up of letters, pictures, or symbols whose names sound like the parts or syllables of a word or phrase. We see a lot of these in the kids’ Sunday School papers or in puzzle books from MindWare. Can you figure out the one below:
🙂
Camper
Can you give an example of one of these puzzle terms? Or can you share a puzzle term I missed?
For further playing/ learning:
- Literarydevices.net – definitions and examples of literary terms
- Fun-with-words.com – wordplay games and definitions. ***Note – this site runs ads across the top of its page, some with questionable content, e.g. – a picture of a scantily clad woman advertising games for “Male Gamers Only”
Thanks for stopping by.
Julia
As a language arts teacher, I’m familiar with these. I can add a few more:
ambigram — a word that looks the same when you view it upside down
palindrome — a word, phrase, or sentence that reads the same backwards and forwards
Hink Pink — a pair of rhyming words that is found by answering a clue, usually composed of synonyms. The name of the puzzle changes, depending on how many syllables are in the words — thus providing another clue.
Ex:
Hink Pink — What do you call an extra rabbit? A spare hare
Hinky-Pinky — What do you call an ugly set of twins? A gruesome twosome.
Hinkety-Pinkety — What do you call a yellow fruit from Cuba? A Havana Banana.
Dianne, this is awesome. I’ve never heard of the term “ambigram”, but I can think of one,like “IN”. The Hink Pinks are a lot of fun – they remind me of the jokes on Laffy Taffy wrappers. We’ll have to make up some this summer. Thanks for sharing your expertise!
Neat! I didn’t know rebus before. The only puzzle I can think of is one my dad shared with me once: “IRIGHTI”