Before resuming "normal" service, or whatever its nearest equivalent might happen to be, I just wanted to take a moment to reflect on the (sort of) palindromic nature of today's date. I know it doesn't work if you put the full year in there, but 11-1-11 still looks kind of neat, and this kind of thing is almost rare enough to be worthy of a mention. (I do wonder if Remembrance Day this year 11:11 on 11-11-11 is numerically special enough that the fundraisers might do something significant with it...? There's still time!).
Meanwhile I thought I'd reflect upon palindromes for a brief moment, specifically those words and phrases that remain the same when the letters are reversed. My own first encounter with any awareness of them that I remember was from Monty Python's parrot sketch ("The palindrome of Bolton would be Notlob") which I first heard on an LP, although it obviously isn't a great example. Still, it got the idea across to my young self, and put another piece in the jigsaw puzzle explaining my own love of the language, so that I now can admire that kind of thing and am able to realise that they are also rare enough in the English language to be of significance.
I was awake last night for ages trying to think of one other than the classic:
"A man, a plan, a canal - Panama!"
and the best I could come up with was:
"Stray arts"
...which is, I suppose what I should have called my so-called "business" venture all those years ago.
A swift search on t'interweb found a load more, of which my favourites (and the most appropriate to us here in Lesser Blogfordshire) were:
"Dammit I'm mad"
"In words alas drown I"
"Rats live on no evil star"
"Do o God no evil deed! Live on! Do Good!"
...and I did wonder two things:
1. What is the longest possible palindromic phrase in the English language?
and
2. Why isn't the word for a palindrome palinilap?
Have a well balanced day!
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