SEMORDNILAP

[gfish]

Taken from here:

A string of letters that reads the same backwards as forwards is a palindrome ('Madam, I'm Adam'; 'A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!'; 'Was it a car or a cat I saw?'). A semordnilap is closely related, but the reversed text must be different. For example, if you reverse 'diaper' you get 'repaid', and if you invert 'desserts' the word 'stressed' appears. A more complicated example is 'deliver no evil', but you can probably invent better ones for yourself.

That's pretty cute, I thought. But then...

As semordnilap is palindromes written backwards, it's a self-referential word, one that encapsulates within itself the thing it represents.

Okay, I thought, very cute. But at the same time it was triggering a vague recognition, an almost tactile association with some other set of websites. Then it hit me. 'Semordnilap' is a quine. I was being reminded of the look and feel of researching quines and similar programming language oddities several years ago.

A quine implemented in the English language. Dear god, that's beautiful. (And my subconcious is obviously far smarter than I am.)

Comments

[allanc.livejournal.com]

Actually, 'quine' as a programming concept is an analogy to quine as an English language concept. The English version was there first.

--AC

[mrlogic.livejournal.com]

What about the adjective "self-referential" (or, if you prefer, "autological"*) ?

And for that matter, what about the word "non-self-referential" (or "heterological"*)?

* coined, if memory does not betray, by D. R. Hofstadter.

[adularia.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Defined as such, 'semordlinap' is a quine, yes.

There is just something forced about it. 'Semordnilap' is fairly obviously an invented word, created to describe words spelled backwards having their own (distinct) meaning. But are semordlinap quines valid if the backwards spelling must be newly defined as a word? I could take any random word, like 'random', and call it a semordlinap by the same logic that invented the word 'semordlinap': modnar. Pronunciable by English rules, sure, but does it have any meaning?

Are semantics important for well-formed quines? I'm not sure. '"Yields falsehood when quined" yields falsehood when quined' derives all of its semantic sense from its nature, but there are a lot of bad quines that follow English syntax but aren't particularly flavorful.

I agree that the dessert -> stressed and evil -> live constructions are elegant, but the word 'semordlinap' itself doesn't seem to cut it.

I would be truly staggered by a non-palindromic word that, spelled backwards, formed a different word with a synonymous or antonymous meaning. Evil -> live is vaguely there, but not quite.

[adularia.livejournal.com]

My personal favorite is 'adjectival'.

Re:

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

Hee, Fishy and I were just talking about adjectival the other night.

Re:

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

Oh heavens. There actually are a couple of pairs like that-- things like that crop up in GAMES Magazine every once in a while. But I am now going crazy because I can't remember them! :/

[darlingfreak.livejournal.com]

Either you're really cool, have too much time on your hands, or both.

Have I mentioned lately that I love you? LOL