Just for fun here are five jumbled words (English). Unscramble them, and for extra credit, try to create a clever saying using only the inventory of letters included in the five words. So that means you may use up to three ‘L’s in your clever saying because there is a total of three ‘L’s among the five words, and you may use two ‘C’s, and so forth. Hint: I haven’t worked out an underlying phrase to be discovered — this is an exercise in creative writing! Please share your witty output!
- CALLEPS
- RUSSED
- NOTOWN
- FROPTHICK
- AIMLAS
Solutions posted tomorrow.
Word Travels 
scalpel reused wonton pitchfork salami
Far as making something out of the letter inventory, if the rule is you can stay under but not go over, how about
HOUSE IN A SPECIAL PART OF TOWN
which leaves nine letters :MSCLSLDRK …
Or there’s the headline about a benefit performance:
DANCE MUSIC SPARKLES FOR TOWN HOSPITAL
which leaves only one: L
You could make the word DANCE into CANDLE and thus use them all, but I don’t know what ‘candle music’ is ;-)…
Love ‘candle music’! 🙂 Your virtuosity at phrase formation here is impressive. (I’ll just nitpick and point out that ‘reused’ needs a second ‘e’ – the jumble ‘russed’ had only one, solution = ‘duress’.) More jumbles coming tomorrow.
Thanks. You can do this with words too. I mean take something somebody has written and use the words as inventory for something else entirely. A poem, say. I fooled with it a few years ago but nobody seemed amused. 😉 My rule was I had to exhaust the inventory but not go over. Here’s an example. First the original, a personals ad from Craig’s List (women seeking men):
avid reader of people and nuance, preemptor of the zeitgeist, shut-in – 25 (pacific heights)
Reply to: pers-259077346@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-01-07, 2:48PM PST
i want to meet people who laugh alot, who have something to say, who force me to throw my notions of social convention out the window of our beat up chevrolet as we fly down the highway at 90 mph. people who find inspiration in a flower creeping thru the crack’d concrete, regardless of how corny it may seem; who are unsatisfied with the banal colours of ordinary dreams or living, who are more interested in Life than longevity, who may go on & on & on & still know the soul of wit is brevity, who are unafraid of their kinks, or to use their capacity to feel, fall, or think, who seek not mere compatability, but the fit of a glove, as well as beauty, truth, freedom, and (above all) Love!
i want storytellers and scientists, shapeshifters and starshooters, and cool complicated confident, beautiful imaginative intelligent, freaky funky sexy people all around (over, under, in & on) me!!!
wanna get to know me? show me. send me a picture and your AIM.
And here’s the reconfiguration:
Longevity may go on and on
And force me to beat up scientists,
Throw a fit or laugh a lot.
The banal shapeshifters down
On the crack’d concrete of the highway
Who all have something corny to say,
Who are creeping unafraid
Thru your ordinary dreams
With the soul of a glove,
Who use their capacity to fall
Out the window and not in love.
Storytellers want sexy people around,
Starshooters want flower colours,
I find inspiration in our Chevrolet
And complicated notions of compatibility.
My Life is unsatisfied
Regardless of people who fly over me
At 90 mph but seek mere beauty.
I wanna get freedom as well,
And beautiful imaginative kinks,
Meet people who know me,
Who show me their funky brevity,
And who are more interested in
A picture of me than social convention.
Are we still confident
Of living the truth, to wit,
(As it may seem intelligent),
To know how or who
To send on and under?
Or who, all freaky
And of cool aim,
Think and feel
as above?
😉
Dear BBear,
What an absolute tour de force on your part! And who knew Craigslist personals had Emily Dickinson types roaming about. Not your average personal for sure — she did give you some material to work with, 🙂 but few could take it to the heights you attained. Bravo.
BBear, one more thing. I’d like to republish your comment as a post this weekend, with your permission. Any copyright issues with the original Craigslist entry I should be wary of? It’s a beautiful exercise in playing with language and I think readers would enjoy it a lot. ?
Thanks. I’m glad somebody appreciates me. 😉 Sure, do what you like. I don’t know anything about copyright, but you won’t hear any complaints from me and the ad ran three years ago, so…
I have a couple more from the same month. They’re Word files and I’ll email them to you as attachments. You can delete them if you don’t want them. You know, it’s not as hard as you might think. Just drag and drop words till they’re all gone. Easy to keep track that way. Gets a little sticky toward the end, of course…