As far as I know, I invented this. I don't see any existing literature about it. Please let me know if I'm wrong.
It is very much like making palindromes, which I also enjoy doing, but I find it to be somehow different, so I am willing to call it an invention.
Simply, you find vaguely understandable (if not grammatical) phrases or collections of words in which the identical letter sequence is repeated, without repeating any whole word.
EDIT: there is disagreement over the validity of this as a rule (see annotations) - currently the game master accepts repeated words, with points off for their use.
Extra points for length, and the more sense it makes.
Here are some of my efforts (besides the name of the game, which is a very simple one):
I clean article - an art I recall legal umpire call leg a lump Hindus try with industry wit Justify our age just if you rage Her plan - ether planet A lad, just mental adjustment
Mind you, I am not soliciting a list. I post for two reasons - to ask if there is prior awareness of this out there, and to share the brain fun I amused my self with.
I know it's very much like palindrome creation, but my experience for some reason is that this is more difficult.
EDIT: I think I have decided Diplodrome is a good name for it. Duplodrome comes in second, because it is more descriptive, but to be authentic with the Greek combining forms, I'm going with diplodrome. For now.-- globaltourniquet, Dec 19 2007 palindromatic http://www.norvig.com/palindrome.htmlOne of many sites on subject [xenzag, Dec 20 2007] Better snag this now http://www.google.c...GLR:en&q=diplodromeSomeone GoDaddy Diplodrome.com for me? [globaltourniquet, Dec 20 2007] Pen Island or Penis Land? http://www.penisland.net [simonj, Dec 21 2007] Bundled words http://www.jimwegry...rds/BundleWords.htmabundance? [Ling, Dec 23 2007] transgendered marine hardware? http://www.popeyesailorsexchange.com/ [afinehowdoyoudo, Mar 20 2008] Ingenious! I am impressed [+]-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 19 2007 I once owned a book of all sorts of word games. I can't recall any such wordplay as this. [+]-- baconbrain, Dec 19 2007 Nice! +
I have played a related version using multiword homophones, (phrases which sound the same when spoken.) Best example I can recall just now is:
grade-A : grey day.-- csea, Dec 20 2007 My longest so far is:
Our hero rang Eve to sour her orange vetos
Doesn't score too high for sense, but it's not bad...-- globaltourniquet, Dec 20 2007 So, what do you call your "sideways palindrome?"-- Laimak, Dec 20 2007 Can I call it a "Palinemord"?-- globaltourniquet, Dec 20 2007 //Can I call it a "Palinemord"?// You can, but that wouldn't make much sense. "Palindrome" means "back way", which is appropriate for a palindrome. You need an equally descriptive name for your creation.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 20 2007 [csea] There is is a pub near me called the Grace Darling, however I always call it the Grey Starling.-- simonj, Dec 20 2007 This is very, very good.-- Murdoch, Dec 20 2007 Together again, to get her Aga in. Mistrust iron, yet chill mist rust irony etch ill.We, at her thin kin "Weather Think In!" Matje' suspect oral mat; Jesus' pectoral.Knowledge, reveal "ex"! Know ledger, Eve, Alex! You're Ally? You? Really??! Pectorals expect oral sex.-- hippo, Dec 20 2007 hippo, hip [po]. hmmmmm.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Dec 20 2007 Sob! Icy, clever. Second it, ion. So, bicycle verse condition! Sob! Unfortunate state! So, bun for tuna, test, ate.-- csea, Dec 20 2007 A thought: There is a related word, "portmanteau," not quite right, but possibly a starting point for a name.-- csea, Dec 20 2007 How about Diplodrome? From the Greek for running twice?
Oh:
And let unabubba handle tuna, bub. Bah!-- globaltourniquet, Dec 20 2007 Diplodrome's a new hen. So did I plod Rome sane? When? (sod I).-- DenholmRicshaw, Dec 20 2007 Those are decidely not diplodromes by my rules. No repeated whole words allowed.-- globaltourniquet, Dec 20 2007 Because without this rule, you could call "The plane! The plane!" a diplodrome...-- globaltourniquet, Dec 20 2007 Will! I suck your ewes. Ill? Is ucky!-- DenholmRicshaw, Dec 20 2007 Back to your notepad on that one, Denholm-- globaltourniquet, Dec 20 2007 OK - I'll lose the sheep
Will! I suck your w... Ill? Is ucky our...-- DenholmRicshaw, Dec 20 2007 To clarify: The identical letter sequence is repeated. With no other letters. The palindrome allows no superfluous letters, and neither does this. You have a stray "W" at the start that is not repeated.
Will, I suck your "W" ill. Is ucky our.
This works, but...-- globaltourniquet, Dec 20 2007 Sounds like a form of punning. At least, all the examples I can not quite think of are puns of one kind or another. But still, +-- DrCurry, Dec 20 2007 You caught me mid edit (as it were)-- DenholmRicshaw, Dec 20 2007 Great stuff there. reminds me of a similar game I played in dutch. Find two nouns that have the same meaning, put them together to make a word of that same meaning. Example: luidsprekerbox. Is such a thing possible in english?+-- zeno, Dec 21 2007 I'm passive, man - aged imp ass. I've managed impassive. Sad anguish - it's a dang UI shit!-- hippo, Dec 21 2007 Someon needs to send these to Will Shortz at the NY Times.-- RayfordSteele, Dec 21 2007 The reaction still ate rice. There act ions, til later ice.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Dec 21 2007 Hmm. Seems there might need to be a minimal standard for intelligibility. For instance, the phrase: "Global Warming Useless" (Which could be a newspaper headline) can be diplodromed into: "Glob Al, War Ming, Use Less." Which doesn't make much sense (except on a very Zen level.)-- csea, Dec 21 2007 I accept [UB]'s assertion that "The Plane! The Plane!" (moment of silence for Tatoo) is in fact a diplodrome. So is "Global warming glob Al war ming". They are both, however, for different reasons, not very interesting ones. So it's a question of degree of greatness, not of rule qualification.
The one about the largest stinky penis is the winner so far, in my view.-- globaltourniquet, Dec 21 2007 Leave no graph undug, phundug.-- phundug, Dec 21 2007 Reminds me of an amusing domain I found - Pen Island, which of course is PenisLand.net-- simonj, Dec 21 2007 I'm amazed and impressed at some of these - especially the ones that make sense, like [boy's parks] one. I can't even think of one that doesn't make sense.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 21 2007 At last, it's atlas' tits. O great, again! Ogre at a gain! Sing, jutta, blessing jut tables.-- globaltourniquet, Dec 21 2007 Align ant ID? Is establish men tar [Ian]? Is malign antidisestablishmentarianism? (ps - [simonj] - just like the energy company PowerGen's Italian website: powergenitalia.com)-- hippo, Dec 22 2007 [simonj] there was a sidebar in a local paper a while back about companies with poorly chosen website names, Pen Island among them. Some others were the Mole Station Nursery and Therapist Finder.-- nick_n_uit, Dec 22 2007 Beauty, [UB]. But... you missed a "to" in there - your points are withheld until you fix it.-- globaltourniquet, Dec 22 2007 - and I already used the "together"/"to get her" thing.-- hippo, Dec 22 2007 The closest I could find are "bundled words", which begin with one word that can be split. The most apt would be "abundance" which becomes "a bun dance". Appropriately this happens to be the first example in the link.-- Ling, Dec 23 2007 From [Ling]'s link: "abundance = a bread boogie" - [marked-for-tagline]-- csea, Dec 23 2007 An old children's game goes like this - tell your friend you'll teach them an ancient prayer that brings good luck. Tell them to chant slowly:
Awa
Tana
Siam
And then say it fast. It's like My Very First Diplodrome.-- phundug, Dec 26 2007 But that only works phonetically. Butthat.-- egbert, Dec 27 2007 I like the idea of phonetical latitude. It prohibits that the semantics seem antiques; or that the syntactical, are sins, tactical.-- 4whom, Dec 31 2007 It is amazing that this is doable in english. I bet in other kinds of alphabets it might be easier - for example, chinese. I could imagine this principle being the integral plot twist in a book - the clue (from an ancient manuscript) does not make sense until the spaces are inserted differently - which would occur three quarters of the way throught the book, just before the action packed finale.-- bungston, Dec 31 2007 Nice! A new euphemism for bullshit: Doe Snot.
(as in, man, that's complete Doe Snot! But it's certain to give sensei a moment's thought...)-- globaltourniquet, Dec 31 2007 Tom Braider took to ok Tomb Raider-- Loris, Feb 12 2008 Damnit why isn't this a post about diplomats fighting to the death over international policy? I was thinking it would spice up covereage of the Uninted Nations or somthing. Do we really need a new word game?-- WcW, Feb 12 2008 Your so weary, our sow ear. (A sting edit; as tinged it) So wear your sow ear. Our!-- mylodon, Feb 12 2008 //Tom Braider took to ok Tomb Raider//
Fixing this to make it a diplodrome:
Tom Braider took Tomb Raider to OK.
And this one: // So wear your sow ear. Our!//
should be:
So wear your sow ear. Your!-- globaltourniquet, Feb 12 2008 But that repeats "Your", no? (Disclaimer: I didn't get the whole "The plane! The plane!" thing.)-- jutta, Feb 12 2008 I conceded that one, jutta, per UnaBubba's probably correct assertion. It's up there in the midst of the list that I didn't solicit. If the letters are repeated, it's a diplodrome, regardless of repeats.
I could fix the description, but I like the record of the evolution of thoughts.-- globaltourniquet, Feb 12 2008 I read that, but either didn't understand or strongly disagree with what UnaBubba was asserting. Not repeating a whole word seems like a clear and necessary rule to me - without that, it's just too easy. I don't want to play a game to which "the plane, the plane" is a solution.
Evolution: You can leave the description, but should add a hint to the casual reader about what the true final rules are where the initial text contradicts them.-- jutta, Feb 12 2008 So you don't want to play "Famous 1970's T.V. catch phrases"?
My contention was that "The plane, the plane" is a solution, albeit a poor one. Just like when you send your car over a cliff because the windshield wipers aren't working. It's a solution to the problem, just not a good one.
Evolution: I probably consider myself just too lazy to bother accomodating (let alone look up how to spell the word acommodating) the casual reader, but for you, I'll make an exception. This time. Edit to follow.-- globaltourniquet, Feb 12 2008 ////Tom Braider took to ok Tomb Raider
// Fixing this to make it a diplodrome: //Tom Braider took Tomb Raider to OK.
Oh, shit. Thats no good then.-- Loris, Feb 14 2008 There is a James Thurber short story that touches on this, spotting 'the rapist therapist'.[scurries off to attic to dig out Thurber collection]-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Feb 14 2008 AG Edwards aged wards
Maybe proper names should be excluded?
Is the position of Puzzle Master hereditary? Will Will will Will Jr. the position?-- Ford, Feb 14 2008 Breaking News! Micro soft gene rally issued, Microsoft generally is sued!-- bneal27, Mar 20 2008 Dog-eared Doge, a red!-- ryokan, Mar 21 2008 Now hobo, Neddi, plod Rome, no! Who boned diplodrome?-- globaltourniquet, Mar 21 2008 A safari's eye no way in vented the sigh. Do Nazi any eggs. Is sting litter? At sure!-- pashute, Nov 03 2012 A quine is a similar concept, where a phrase is preceded by its own quotation to form a meaningful (often self-referencing) sentence. Douglas Hoffstadter named it after its inventor - "To quine a phrase", to quine a phrase.-- spidermother, Nov 03 2012 // The reaction still ate rice. There act ions, til later ice. //
I want to put that on the wall.
// Extra points for length, and the more sense it makes. //
I think, if this is to be an actual game, the scoring system should also assign penalties to the various imperfections a diplodrome may have. Here's my proposal (numbers subject to tuning): • 1 point for each letter of the repeated letter sequence, times the number of repetitions of that letter. • -0.25 point for each letter of parts of the string outside the repeated section (support words on either end). • Repetition of the same words, using letters at the same point in the letter sequence, means those letters count for -0.5 instead of 1 point, for each instance of each letter. • Repetition of a word, but using other letters in the sequence, is scored at (1 - 1/N) point for each instance of each of those letters, where N is the length in letters of the repeated letter sequence. (That's to account for it being increasingly more difficult to avoid repeated words, even not using the same letters of the sequence, as the overall diplodrome gets longer.) • Then the score is multiplied by a subjective rating from 1–5 of how much sense the overall phrase/sentence(s) makes.
Some examples:
"Our hero rang Eve to sour her orange vetos" Overall length: 34 Repeated letter sequence: OURHERORANGEVETOS Length of sequence: 17 Unrepeated letters: 0 Repetitions of sequence: 2 Repeated words: none Raw score: 34 Sensibility: 3 (Our hero called Eve on the phone to convince her not to veto something about oranges.) Score: 102
"Diplodrome's a new hen. So did I plod Rome sane? When? (sod I)." Overall length: 44 Repeated letter sequence: DIPLODROMESANEWHENSODI Length of sequence: 22 Unrepeated letters: 0 Repetitions of sequence: 2 Repeated letters outside of repeated words: 20 Score for repeated letters outside of repeated words: 40 Repeated words: The word "I" is repeated, but one instance uses the first letter I in the letter sequence, and the other uses the last one. Therefore, each of these is scored at (1 - 1/44) = 0.977 points each, for 1.954 points. Raw score: 41.954 Sensibility: 3 (The concept of diplodromes is new (and metaphorically referred to as a hen). Therefore, did I walk through Rome when I had my full mental faculties? On what date did I do that? Sodomize me.) Score: 125.862
"The plane! The plane!": Overall length: 16 Repeated letter sequence: THEPLANE Length of sequence: 8 Unrepeated letters: 0 Repetitions of sequence: 2 Repeated letters outside of repeated words: 0 Repeated words: all of the letters are used in the same words, which are formed at the same points in the letter sequence each time the sequence is repeated, so every letter counts for -0.5 each time. Raw score: -4 Sensibility: 5 Score: -20
"The reaction still ate rice. There act ions, til later ice." Overall length: 46 Repeated letter sequence: THEREACTIONSTILLATERICE Length of sequence: 23 Unrepeated letters: 0 Repetitions of sequence: 2 Repeated letters outside of repeated words: 46 Repeated words: none Raw score: 46 Sensibility: 4 (Even so, the chemical reaction consumed the rice. Ions are still doing stuff in the mixture, until it freezes.) Score: 184
"Leave no graph undug, phundug." Overall length: 24 Repeated letter sequence: PHUNDUG Length of sequence: 7 Unrepeated letters: 10 (-2.5 pts) Repetitions of sequence: 2 Repeated letters outside of repeated words: 14 Repeated words: none Raw score: 11.5 Sensibility: 4 (Hey phundug, you need to dig every graph. (Though what does it mean to dig a graph?)) Score: 46
"Align ant ID? Is establish men tar [Ian]? Is malign antidisestablishmentarianism?" Overall length: 66 Repeated letter sequence: ALIGNANTIDISESTAB LISHMENTARIANISM (split because the site won't let me submit otherwise) Length of sequence: 33 Unrepeated letters: 0 Repetitions of sequence: 2 Repeated letters outside of repeated words: 62 Repeated words: The word "is" is repeated, but it uses different letters in the sequence each time. Therefore, each of these four letters is scored at (1 - 1/66) = 0.985 points, for 3.940 points. Raw score: 65.940 Sensibility: 1 (It makes no sense whatsoever.) Score: 65.940
"Abundance: a bun dance" Repeated letter sequence: ABUNDANCE Length of sequence: 9 Unrepeated letters: 0 Repetitions of sequence: 2 Repeated letters outside of repeated words: 18 Repeated words: none Raw score: 18 Sensibility: 2 (Plentiful buns could partake in or be celebrated by a dance…?) Score: 36
// I like the idea of phonetical latitude. It prohibits that the semantics seem antiques; or that the syntactical, are sins, tactical. //
I like that too, but that will have to have another scoring system.
// A safari's eye no way in vented the sigh. Do Nazi any eggs. Is sting litter? At sure! //
What is that supposed to be?
// [quine mention] //
A quine is also, in another sense of the word, a computer program that produces its own source code as output. I was thinking as I read this discussion that it should be feasible to write a computer program to generate diplodromes. (Also, Chrome didn't red-underline the word "diplodromes" there for even a fraction of a second, which is cool. I wrote this paragraph first in this anno.) So, in theory, it should be possible to write a computer program that generates diplodromes and that is a quine. (Run it with a flag to choose which mode it runs in.)-- notexactly, Jun 21 2019 random, halfbakery