War of the Words

E4

The ditty goes: “Thirty days has September/ April, June and November/ All the rest have thirty-one/ Except February alone/ And that has twenty-eight days clear/ And twenty-nine in each leap year.” So now the easy question is — how many months have 30 days? And the answer is, all months have 30 days except February. The tough question however is, what special quality does the word TWENTYNINE have when it’s written in capital letters which no other word has?

Here’s some more stuff: there’s another word in common use which usually describes a person or thing as not to be found in any place whatsoever, and yet, with no alteration other than a mere space between syllables, it volte-faces and correctly describes that person or thing as being actually present at the very moment. The second longest word that can be constructed using only the top QWERTYUIOP line on keyboards is — get this — TYPEWRITER. The longest is an eleven-letter word. You figure that. I’ll only tell you that FLASKS is the longest possible on the second row. Whereas double-letters in words like bOOk, pEEk and hiTTing are coMMon. Less so are witHHold, skIIng, booKKeeper and VacUUm. Got any incorporating VV and WW? Okay naVVy is one of them.

IVANHOE BY SIR WALTER SCOTT can be anagrammed to produce “A novel by a Scottish writer”, but who cares? HOARSE, LAMB, CZAR, HANDSOME, TWITCHED, NEUFCHATEL, GNOME, MYRRH, HEIFER, MARIJUANA, KNIGHT, TALK, MNEMONIC, AUTUMN, LEOPARD, PSYCHOLOGIST, CINQ-CENTS, ATELIER, VISCOUNT, LISTEN, PLAQUE, WRITING, CHATEAUX, PRAY AND RENDEZVOUS have something in common. Can you think of one for V?

794 letters are used to make up the words for the numbers one through ninety-nine. But not only is L used only twice, J, K, M, P, Q, and Z are not used at all. And if you thought those were sidey letters then know that D, C, B and A are not used either. In fact, how far do you think you might have to spell before encountering an A?

DEAR MS

Logic-Gate-Dept:

This may or may not be the answer you have in mind, but it fits all the facts. Monday, August 20 - Friday, August 24: Bea and Ralph Vogel; Tuesday, August 21 – Thursday, August 23: Lisa Duval; Friday, August 24 – Tuesday, August 28: Kathy and Andrew Newton; Saturday, August 25 – Monday, August 27: Jon Soames; Monday, August 27 – Friday, August 31: Veronica McCarthy.

•Farsi Vakil, learningfarsi101@gmail.com

Milking-It-Dry-Dept:

When a cup of milk and water mixture is transferred from the milk container to the water container, the volume of milk in it is necessarily equal to the volume of water that it has replaced in the cup that was initially transferred. The volume of water thus replaced remains in the milk container. There is, therefore, as much milk in the water container as there is water in the milk container.

•Imas Limaj, fnga@eim.ae

(The problem was: “Why is it that all clocks only run clockwise?” — MS)

Counter-Clock-Dept:

Mechanical clocks were invented in the northern hemisphere by inventors who were trying to make models of the sun’s movement in the sky. To watch the sun from the northern hemisphere, you have to face south. Then the sun will rise on your left and pass over your head to set on your right. Since the hour hand on the clock was made to follow the sun’s motion through the sky, it moves from left to right over the top of the clock — clockwise. The hands are actually modelled after the shadow on a sundial.

•Vanessa Fernandes, vanessaferns2002@gmail.com

ENDGAME(S)

1. Name a common English word which contains somewhere in it, at the beginning, end or middle, the three letters U F A in that order.

2. Never been trapped in quicksand, right? But if you discover you are stuck in the stuff, why is lying down on your back the best thing to do?

(To get in touch with Mukul, mail him at mukul.mindsport@gmail.com)