{"id":44398,"date":"2015-12-02T15:10:20","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T23:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=44398"},"modified":"2015-12-03T01:54:11","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T09:54:11","slug":"wonderful-world-semordnilaps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2015\/12\/wonderful-world-semordnilaps\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wonderful World of Semordnilaps"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"mirror-of-erised\"<\/a>You are most likely aware that a palindrome is a word or phrase that is spelled the same regardless of whether it\u2019s read forward or backward. A few simple examples are noon, race car, dad, mom, and wow. But what happens when a word read backward creates a different word altogether? Welcome to the wonderful world of the semordnilap.<\/p>\n

One of the earliest direct references to the concept of semordnilaps (though not the name) in English can be found in Lewis Carroll\u2019s 1893 novel Sylvie and Bruno Concluded<\/a><\/em>, which is the second volume of his 1889 Sylvie and Bruno<\/a>. <\/em>In Chapter 1 of Sylvie and Bruno Concluded<\/em>, Carroll writes:<\/p>\n

Sylvie was arranging some letters on a board- E-V-I-L.<\/p>\n

\u2018Now Bruno,\u2019 she said, \u2018what does that spell?\u2019<\/p>\n

Bruno looked at it, in solemn silence, for a minute.<\/p>\n

\u2018I know what it doesn\u2019t spell!\u2019 he said at last.<\/p>\n

\u2018That\u2019s no good,\u2019 said Sylvie. \u2018What does it spell?\u2019<\/p>\n

Bruno took another look at the mysterious letters, \u2018Why, it\u2019s \u201cLIVE,\u201d backwards!\u2019, he exclaimed. (I thought it was, indeed.)<\/p>\n

\u2018How did you manage to see that?\u2019 said Sylvie.<\/p>\n

\u2018I just twiddled my eyes,\u2019 said\u00a0 Bruno, \u2018and\u00a0 then I saw\u00a0 it\u00a0 directly…\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Since then, multiple attempts have been made to coin the perfect word to describe these sort of “half-palindromes,” but none have stuck or been accepted by the vast majority of linguists or the population at large. These alternate names include backronyms, volvograms, heteropalindromes, semi-palindromes, half-palindromes, reversgrams, mynoretehs, recurrent palindromes, reversible anagrams, word reversals, reversal pair, anagram, reversion, inversion, antigram, and anadromes.<\/p>\n

As for the term \u201csemordnilap,\u201d which is beginning to win out as a name for the concept, it first appeared in C.C. Bombaugh’s 1961 Oddities and Curiosities of Words and Literature<\/a><\/em>. The originator of the term does not appear<\/em> to be, however, Dr. Bombaugh, but rather the editor and annotator of the book, Martin Gardner, who included “semordnilap” in one of his annotations. The word is self-referencing in that it demonstrates the concept for which it describes- semordnilap is palindromes spelled backwards.<\/p>\n

Whatever you decide to call them, semordnilaps are everywhere. Some words are naturally semordnilaps (evil\/live, god\/dog, desserts\/stressed, etc.), but others are created intentionally. For instance, \u201cyob<\/a>\u201d is a British slang word for a rowdy, misbehaving young man- essentially acting opposite of how he should as a boy.<\/p>\n

More famous instances of the latter type of semordnilap include:<\/p>\n