Palindrome (pronounced pal-in-drohm)
(1) A word, line, verse, number, sentence, etc,
reading the same backward as forward.
(2) In biochemistry, a region of DNA in which the
sequence of nucleotides is identical with an inverted sequence in the
complementary strand.
1638: From the Ancient Greek παλίνδρομος (palindromos) (running back again;
recurring, literally “literally "a running back”) the construct being
πάλιν (pálin) (again, back) + δρόμος
(dromos) (direction, running, race,
racecourse). Pálin was from the primitive Indo-European kwle-i-, a suffixed form
of the root kwel- (revolve, move round) (kw- becomes the Greek p- before some
vowels. The word palindrome was first
published by Henry Peacham (1578-circa 1645) in The Truth of Our Times (1638).
Although derived from the Greek root palin
+ dromos, the Greek language uses καρκινικός
(carcinic, literally “crab-like”) to refer to letter-by-letter reversible
writing. The related palinal (directed
or moved backward, characterized by or involving backward motion) dates from
1888. Palindrome & palindromist are nouns,
palindromically is an adverb and palindromic an adjective.
The noun palinode (poetical recantation, poem in
which the poet retracts invective contained in a former satire) dates from the 1590s
and was from either the sixteenth century French palinod or the Late Latin palinodia,
from the Greek palinōidia (poetic
retraction), again from pálin; the
related form were palinodical & palinodial. The word palinode was sometimes applied to
the apologia artists and others in the Soviet Union were compelled to publish,
were they accused of formalism or something just as heinous.
Pierre Laval (1883–1945), the palindromic Prime Minister of France 1931-1932, 1935-1936 & de facto prime minister in the Vichy Government 1942-1944. He was executed by a French firing squad in 1945.
Perhaps surprisingly, the longest known
palindromic word is not German despite their fondness for lengthy
compounds. According to the Guinness Book of World Records the record
is held by the 19 character saippuakivikauppias
which is Finnish for “a travelling salesman who sells lye (caustic soda)”. It’s said not often to come up in conversation
and seems to exist only a curiosity used to list the world’s longest known palindrome. In English, palindromes of a few characters
are common but examples with more than seven letters are rare. Tattarrattat, as it’s usually spelled, has 12
characters but it’s a bit of a fudge because it’s also an onomatopoeia so some lexicographers
insist it doesn’t count. Tattarrattat is
the sound made by knocking on a door.
Also cheating but clever is the 11 letter aibohphobia meaning a fear of
palindromes, the construct being the suffix -phobia + its reverse. Adding to the charm is that it’s doubtless a
non-existent condition, but it’s suspected there are a few of those in the
literature of psychiatry. From India, there's kinnikinnik, a smoking mixture of bark & leaves (but no tobacco. English’s
longest “real” palindrome appears to be detartrated, the past participle of
detartrate (to remove tartrates (salts of tartaric acid), especially from fruit
juices and wines, in order to reduce tartness or sourness). Not only is it a real word but it describes a
common process in the industrial production of foods and beverages.
Palindromic sentences are often created and these
are judged not by length but by their elegance.
Leigh Mercer (1893–1977) was a word nerd and recreational mathematician
who devised the classic "A man, a
plan, a canal: Panama!" and this approach was in the 1980s taken to
its logical extreme in two novels, Satire:
Veritas (1980, 58,795 letters) by David Stephens and Dr Awkward & Olson in Oslo (1986, 31,954 words) by Lawrence
Levine, both said to be palindromically perfect and wholly nonsensical. Shorter but of admirable clarity are the many
baptismal fonts in Greece and Turkey which bear the circular 25-letter
inscription NIYON ANOMHMATA MH MONAN OYIN
(Wash (my) sins, not only (my) face). This
appears also in several English churches.
Created essentially because of the inadequacies of the official justice system, they're now often referred to as "proto-vigilante" courts but for centuries they filled a niche before they came increasingly to be associated with injustice and corruption before finally being abolished in 1811, a half-decade after the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, the source of their original authority.
The pattern on the skull was based on a multi-directional palindromic grid created by some word nerds in Ancient Rome. Later re-discovered etched onto a wall in the doomed city of Herculaneum, it reads Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas (The sower, Arepo, makes the wheel work) and it works whether read vertically, horizontally, or in the diagonal. These types of palindromic squares are called pentacles and the SATOR was the most commonly found in the Western Esotericism of late antiquity. They were used by Kabbalists, Gnostics, alchemists and other pre-medieval mystics in the creation of magic spells, amulets, potions etc and were thus often seen in the shops of apothecaries.
sator: sower/planter
tenet: he/she/they/it holds/has/grasps/possesses
opera: work/exertion/service
rotās: wheels
There has been speculation about the the meaning of this pentacle, some a little fanciful, but the consensus is things were made up just to fit, rather as "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" was coined to use each letter in the alphabet and "DICK HOOD DID EXCEED" serves no purpose other than to appear the same if inverted and viewed in a mirror.
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