Palindromes

Words are basically names; they just name things or concepts instead of people. So I decided to created a new category, Namely Words, where from time-to-time I’ll post on some words I love.

I’ll begin with the word palindrome, a long-time favorite of mine. A palindrome is a word or phrase that says the same thing forwards or backwards. Mom or racecar are great examples of words that are palindromes. In fact, I’ve read that Mom can actually be referred to as a super palindrome because not only is it the same thing forwards and backwards, but it can also be turned upside down to create a new palindrome, “wow.” (Mom and wow certainly seem to be good words to have together!) A famous palindromic phrase is, “Madam, I’m Adam.” There are some palindromic phrases that read more like paragraphs. I won’t list those here, but an example of a longer palindrome reads like this: “Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?”

It’s no surprise that the word “palindrome” has its roots in Greek. In fact, one of the first noted palindromes was found at the Herculaneum. The Latin words are, “Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas.” There are many interpretations of what this means, one of which is: The Great Sower holds in its hand all works; all works the Great Sower holds in its hand.  Wikipedia notes that this palindrome, referred to as the Sator Square, is particularly clever because of the letter combination. The first letter of each word in the phrase spells the first letter. The second letter of each word in the phrase spells the second letter, and so on. And to think they could pull off something like this without computers? They must have had a lot of time on their hands!

Do you have any palindromes that you know of and like?