a weblog of wordplay by Eric Harshbarger
Morse Code Palindromes
I wondered what the longest word in the English language which, when represented in Morse Code, is palindromic. A few minutes and a short Perl script later I had my answer (using the Unix dictionary of words):PROTECTORATE .--..-.----.-.-.----.-..--.Here it is with delimiters, so one can distinguish the letters (but since the delimiters are not sounded out, I have decided to ignore them when considering palindrominity):
.--./.-./---/-/./-.-./-/---/.-./.-/-/.This word is also the one with the longest Morse representation (not necessarily obvious since individual letters have varying length representations).
And because you must be dying to know, here's a complete list of every words that is palindromic is Morse representation.
The next step, of course, is to try to create a whole sentence with morse-palindrominity...
-- Eric
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Comments about this article:
I just discovered your blog and I am in love with it! Please, post more frequently! I would be very interested if you were willing to share any of your perl scripts. :)Posted by: Ryan
I certainly don't update this site as often as I used to, but, as shown with this entry... if I cook up some new wordplay shenanigans, I try to at least make a note of it here.
Posted by: Eric
You post less often, and now Ryan is in love with your blog. I think this is called "playing hard to get", and it works. Sentence-wise, I like "ISIS SEES HIS HISSES" because it's dots all the way for that sense of urgency.
Posted by: Larry Hosken
Here's one!
Go! Rash, I stem tide. The invisible savior is here now.
Posted by: Lori
GAMES Magazine investigated this topic at one point and found RAPHAELESQUE (.-. .- .--. .... .- . .-.. . ... --.- ..- .), a Morse palindrome with 32 characters. Alas, it is a proper adjective.
Posted by: jellomochas
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