Talk:Palindrome/Archive 1

Famous Quotations
I always heard that Eve's response was just "Eve." —Preceding unsigned comment added by CrazyGilmore (talk • contribs) 23:32, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Dimitri Martin?
This page list's Dimitri Martin's "Dammit I'm Mad" as the longest palindrome in the English language at 224 words. While it's certainly one of the best long palindrome's I've read it surely isn't the longest. Even if you disqualify the computer generated palindromes of Peter Norvig, there's still Nick Montfort and William Gilespie's 2002: A Palindrome Story. I think that the tile of "world's longest" is a pretty dubious claim in palindrome writing, and the reference should be removed completely. Any thoughts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.182.222.18 (talk) 14:37, 5 June 2009
 * Agree.Sandcherry (talk) 23:43, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I also agree. I'm going to take that line out, put in a source for the poem, and clean up that section a bit.--Mintrepublic (talk) 07:07, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
 * World's longest palindrome is a subject of constant interest among readers and I think should be present here (as it is. I'm rejoining an old debate here.)  However, there is no interpretation of the subject by which Dmitri Martin's palindrome is especially long.  If you look back through the history of this section, there are many palindromes of tens of thousands of words in length in different languages.  I am going to remove Martin's and reinsert language from older versions of this article that reference published palindromes of significant length in different languages -- the novels, and Perec, for example.  It looks like someone was overbold in early 2009 and deleted the whole section, after which individual parts were readded piecemeal. Msalt (talk) 20:18, 2 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Demetri Martin has stated (as a guest on a 2011 episode of NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!) that he broke the reported world record for the longest English palindromic poem (not the longest palindromic text), which is featured in his book, This is a Book. — Loadmaster (talk) 15:22, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
 * That palindrome is the longest good palindrome, and arguably the best long palindrome (depending on how you define long, and best of course). I don't see it as a poem, though he calls it one and broke it into stanzas and ends the lines before the margin, which is the only objective way to define a poem ultimately these days.  There is also no official record for length in palindromes, poetic or not.  I think it's probably true that this is longer than any other known English palindrome that calls itself a poem. Also, his first name is spelled Demetri. Msalt (talk) 00:26, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

What are number palindromes good for?
You know,if you write a row of palimdromic numbers it would be great song, because it can be understood without translation and rhymes in every language! 11 22 33 44 55 66 77 88 99 101 111 121 131 141 151 161 171 181 191 202

But what can be a practical using of palindromic numbers?


 * That rather begs the question as to what the practical use of ordinary palindromes might be?


 * Nuttyskin (talk) 18:00, 5 May 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.41.104.21 (talk) 18:48, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

weird al song
I don't get how that weird al song is comprised of palindromes when it doesn't form the same words backwards as forwards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.148.225.27 (talk • contribs) 01:50, April 18, 2007
 * The lyrics of the song are a succession of many well-known palindromes ("Never odd or even", etc.) 20:05, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Nonsense
I think this is some kind of a nonsense page. In each language there are practically infinite palindromes, especially if you also include sentences. Why the list in each language? you could fill a book just for one language. The part of the palindromes in different languages should be deleted and there could be put more weight on the history of palindromes and the way they are used in different languages. --me


 * I think it's interesting to show how palindromes work in other languages. I agree we don't need an excess of them, just a few examples in each place.  As a matter of fact, I find one especially interesting, the Arabic written word for "Libya" is interesting, in that while not being the same letters back and forth, "l-i-b-i-a", but in many fonts, and most handwriting is a pure mirror image of itself: ليبيا I think it's something fairly interesting to show, especially to people who speak English monolingually, and are linguistically deprived. (*cough*American*cough*) --Puellanivis 23:46, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Dictionary entry
Is this ever likely to be anything more than a dictionary entry? If not, it should be deleted. --Robert Merkel

Stephen Fry
The Stephen Fry palindromes are from his book Paperweight. I seem to remember that they're not by him, but rather the results of a competition he held in a newspaper column -- could someone who has a copy check this please? -- user:Tarquin

Ed's favorite
My favorite word palindrome: ''Come, shall I stroke your whatever, darling? Darling, whatever your stroke, I shall come.'' (Willard Espy) --Ed Poor

Koselure Mordni La Palindrome rules - OK
what does "Koselure Mordni La Palindrome rules - OK" mean? Kingturtle 06:27 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)
 * I think it doesn't mean anything. It looks like an artifically constructed palindrome as a joke. 08:17, Feb 7 2005 (UTC)
 * It's a specimen of "Fake palindrome" or cheater's palindrome. for example

"Kingturtle's favorite palindrome ends with "htiwsdne emordnilap etirovaf selt rut gnik.'" Probably a reference to the rock album "Dandy Warhols Rule -- OK". In any case, it doesn't belong on this page. Msalt (talk) 20:08, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Removed Chinese palindromes
Sorry that I have to delete the Chinse palindromes below. There are palindromes far much famous and better.

Source: &#22238;&#25991;&#36938;&#25138; (Palindrome Games)


 * Shanghai zilaishui lai zi hai shang (&#19978;&#28023;&#33258;&#20358;&#27700;&#20358;&#33258;&#28023;&#19978; in pinyin: shang4 hai3 zi4 lai2 shui3 lai2 zi4 hai3 shang4): "Shanghai's running water comes from the sea"
 * Zhongguo Shan zhong you Zhongshan Guozhong (&#20013;&#22283;&#23665;&#20013;&#26377;&#20013;&#23665;&#22283;&#20013; zhong1 guo2 shan1 zhong1 you3 zhong1 guo2 zhong1): "In the Chinese Mountain, there is Central-Mountain Middle School"; alternate translation: "In between the Chinese mountains, there is Dr. Sun Yat-sen Middle School"
 * Hualian Yinshuachang shuayin lianhua (&#33457;&#34030;&#21360;&#21047;&#24288;&#21047;&#21360;&#34030;&#33457; hua1 lian2 yin4 shua1 chang3 shua1 yin4 lian2 hua1): "Hualien Press prints lotuses"
 * chuan shang nüzi jiao zinü shang chuan (&#33337;&#19978;&#22899;&#23376;&#21483;&#23376;&#22899;&#19978;&#33337; chuan2 shang4 nü3 zi3 jiao3 zi3 nü3 shang4 chuan2): "The woman on the boat is calling her children to go onboard"
 * tian shang long juan feng juan long shang tian (&#22825;&#19978;&#40845;&#25458;&#39080;&#25458;&#40845;&#19978;&#22825; tian1 shang4 long2 juan3 long2 shang4 tian1): "The dragon up on the sky whirls a wind to roll a dragon up to the sky"

&psi;
As it stands, the english transliteration of the greek palindrome fails. It starts "nips" and ends "psin". Is it not a palindrome, or is the transliteration wrong or ...? -- SGBailey 2003-12-02


 * ps is one letter in Greek --Charles A. L. 20:29, Dec 2, 2003 (UTC)


 * This is the letter psi, or &psi;. Therefore, nips &hellip; psin --> &nu;&iota;&psi; &hellip; &psi;&iota;&nu;.

Mathematics of palindromes
I would love to see some information about the mathematics of palindromes. Such as that two are concatenated, they produce another and if a palindromes is made of two of the same word, that word must also be a palindromes. I think that this is far more useful than listing a bunch of known palindromes.

--68.178.20.154 02:46, 21 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Added some mathematics for your reading pleasure, under "Computation theory". Perhaps I misunderstand your claim that "two are concatenated, they produce another"; obviously aba + bb does not produce a palindrome.
 * --Phildonnia

No more English examples please.
Unless there is a famous or historical context, there is no need to add any more English examples to this article. I suggest people delete the mundane or uninteresting ones as this articles really should consist more of the history significance or mathematics of palindromes. Perhaps there should be a list of palindromes article? Asteron &#12494;&#12524;&#12484;&#12449; 17:43, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, this article needs to be reduced to a definition and discussion of the various types of palindrome, with a very few illustrative examples. All the lists should be reduced to the well known or paricularly good examples only, and moved to a new List of palindromes. Shantavira 18:21, 14 July 2005 (UTC)


 * How about moving most of the examples to wikiquote? That's probably the place if they can be attributed to particular people.  Maybe one page for each language to keep the size under control.  -- Kevin, 13 Oct 05.  Actually, I take that back, hardly any look like they can be properly attributed to a particular person, "List of" sounds better for those of no particularly great significance or provedance. --  Kevin, 61.8.37.17 00:41, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, it's a myth that palindromes cannot be attributed. I've done a lot of research on the subject, and most of the ones in your list can be. This idea has been pushed by a lot of wordplay writers who want to be free to quote without permission.... When I have more time I'll add attributions, but for now there are a handful at http://realchange.org/pal/authors.htm -- Mark Saltveit

splitting of information
This article is a good example for the splitting of information in the wikimediaprojekts. I think it is more useful to create an article in every wikitionary about this, where the palindromes are collected. -- M@rkus 22:07, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Huh?
From the article:

"Some philosopher-scientists report a palindromic relationship between the astrophysical-biological evolution and the experiencing beings that found themselves living in it. It is thus remarked that what goes on in the universe manifests itself to natural scientists as an axiological palindrome, readable from more than a single vantage point. If, through observation of reality - the argument runs - one comes to recognize that mind-possessing living creatures – whether human or of some other species – were used as a means, that is to say functionalized, by physical processes, namely by biospheric evolution and its larger context, then one must also recognize that the astrophysical-biospheric evolution was in turn functionalized or used as a means to afford responsibility to some mind-possessing living creatures. In this way, it is remarked that natural science observes a mirror or reciprocal functionalization, in which each of both realities uses for its own ends the reality that uses it as a means."

I have read this several times - both forwards and backwards - and it makes absolutely no sense to me. Does it actually mean anything, and, if so, could someone translate it into English? Otherwise I propose that it should be deleted on the grounds of being incomprehensible. Matt 13:32, 24 December 2005 (UTC).

I believe the deal is the universe needs something conscious for its presence to be known, and conscious beings need a universe to exist within. Seems cute, maybe. It was added recently. Jok2000 21:00, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, that at least makes some sort of sense, but I still fail to see what it has to with palindromes. Maybe the whole section could be moved to some page about metaphysics or philosophy or something? Matt 23:24, 24 December 2005 (UTC).


 * Why not just scratch it from here and leave it to the author to find a better place for it elsewhere. &minus;Woodstone 23:50, 24 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I've removed it. The only connection to palindromes, as far as I can see, is that it describes a somewhat symmetrical relationship (iff A then B; iff B then A, or something), and symmetry is a concept related to palindromes. The connection is vague and insubstantial at best. EldKatt (Talk) 11:58, 25 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi all. I agree with the deletion - now I see it, my summary was clumsy; sorry :-\ What about this one:
 * I moved the proposed text into the main entry. Also slightly modified the 'genetics' mention in the 'hairpin' comment, as all those biological material corresponds to genetics.200.42.95.189 14:41, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Further reorganisation
Since various people have commented that this article was overwhelmed with examples (and I agree), I have moved the bulk of the remaining examples to a new page, "Palindromic phrases", and reorganised the Palindrome page somewhat. The idea is that the main Palindrome page should concentrate on general information and retain just a modest number of illustrative examples. Matt 13:15, 25 December 2005 (UTC).


 * Can anybody tell me what happened to the "Palindromic phrases" page? By reading the previous topics at this discussion section, it seems that it was deleted by somebody, without further debate. I agree that a plethora of examples was not adequate at the main article, but I think that Matt's solution of a specific list page was a quite good idea... Similar lists may be found in other languages Wikipedias, and they are useful / interesting, specially for the palindrome enthusiasts. Antonio Prates 04:08, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

symetric palindromes
Perhaps add a little on palindromes that are symetric, at least with individual letters (to quote Bob: "A TOYOTAS A TOYOTA"

JedG 08:46, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Do you mean in which each letter (arguably) has some form of symmetry? I'm not sure what should be notable about this.... -- Smjg 10:48, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Arguably? Numskull, all of those letters clearly have bilateral (left-right) symmetry. The capital letters in the Western (English) alphabet that have this bilateral symmetry are these: A, H, I, M, O, T, U, V, W, X, and Y. There are fewer lower case letters with this symmetry: i, l, m, o, v, w, x. The symmetry also depends on the typeface selected: in some of them, t and u also have bileteral symmetry.72.146.43.92 (talk) 15:45, 30 December 2008 (UTC)


 * S has rotational symmetry, not bilateral, destroying the pattern. 91.107.154.123 (talk) 00:57, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I know a little nifty one: "Was it a cat I saw." I think that it is awsome! (Samantha)

Peter Norvig's "sentence"
This is hardly a sentence. I don't think it even has a verb in it. Anyone could write a program that produces a long palindrome by just searching for English words. Moreover, many of the words are names and have dubious spelling at that. I can make a longer palindromic sentence. Here:

Yet another man named Demannamreh Tonatey, yet another man named Demannamreh Tonatey, yet another man named Demannamreh Tonatey, yet another man named Demannamreh Tonatey, yet another man named Demannamreh Tonatey, yet another man named Demannamreh Tonatey, yet another man named Demannamreh Tonatey, yet another man named Demannamreh Tonatey, yet another man named Demannamreh Tonatey, yet another man named Demannamreh Tonatey,
 * ..... (hundreds of repetitions removed. PrimeHunter 01:10, 25 July 2007 (UTC)) .....

yet another man named Demannamreh Tonatey, yet another man named Demannamreh Tonatey, yet another man named Demannamreh Tonatey, yet another man named Demannamreh Tonatey, yet another man named Demannamreh Tonatey, yet another man named Demannamreh Tonatey, yet another man named Demannamreh Tonatey, yet another man named Demannamreh Tonatey, yet another man named Demannamreh Tonatey, yet another man named Demannamreh Tonatey.

You get the idea, even if this isn't the longest.


 * Errr ... I think you've made your point. JackofOz 02:19, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Are you sure? Because I could make it longer...his "sentence" also has "an one," unsurprising for a program-generated sentence but improper English. 67.185.99.246 23:03, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Peter Norvig is director of research for Google. I'm pretty sure he can beat you in whatever battle of computers you'd like to arrange.  Apparently, his efforts assumes as an unspoken rule that words and phrases can't be repeated, other than articles. And that will be hard to beat unless you control a botnet.Msalt (talk) 07:09, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Funny ... 68.205.5.33 20:54, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Roosevelt vs. Lesseps
We say "A man, a plan, a canal. Panama" commemorates Theodore Roosevelt. I had always understood it to refer to Ferdinand de Lesseps who conceived the idea and did some of the early work after completing the Suez Canal. Does anybody know either way? JackofOz 02:19, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * No one knows for certain who even wrote that most famous of palindromes, much less what the context was. It was published in a list of 100 palindromes that Leigh Mercer provided over some years in the 1940s and early 1950s.  He didn't claim to have written all of them, and it can be demonstrated that some were published as early as 1925, but he also DID write a number of palindromes -- using a series of partial palindromes on index cards which he mixed and matched.  He is generally considered to have written that one, and -- I have a copy of his cards -- there is one that says "Panama -- a man a p".  -- Mark Saltveit

Historical changes
I'm new to this, so sorry if I overstepped or undercommunicated.

For one thing, the article now seems to reference my name at the start, which I certainly didn't try to do. IF I did that by accident -- and it's not a way of marking my changes -- I'd love for someone to remove that. Thanks. --OK, I think I figured out what happened -- I must have clicked the "add signature" link thinking that was how I took responsibility for my changes, when my cursor was near the front of the page. I went back and removed it. Impressive debut, huh!

I'm editor of The Palindromist, a long-running palindrome zine, and corrected several inaccuracies or vaguenesses. to wit: -- the SATOR square can be quite precisely dated to 79 AD since it was found at Pompeii -- the NIPSON inscription in Greek is NOT ancient, as far as anyone knows. For one thing, it's only found on Christian baptismal fonts and so it wouldn't make sense for it be an ancient (read classic) Greek saying. I changed that to Byzantine. -- In Girum Noctu... while a very cool palindrome, isn't found anywhere older than the Renaissance and is not likely to have been known to the Romans. Neither it nor any other palindromes are quoted in classic Roman literature, though there are references that imply that Sotades of Maroneia (approx 300 BC in Alexandria) had some kind of backwards literature. -- as the small article near the end of this page acknowledges (vaguely), "palindrome" is not actually a greek word. It was coined by Ben Jonson in the 1600s from Greek roots. The oldest reference I've seen in Greek uses the term "karkinoi", a shorter version of the term previously listed. --Msalt 03:30, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Removed Blegvad quote
I removed this part for several reasons: "US songwriter Peter Blegvad coined one of the longest grammatically-correct palindromes: 'Peel's foe, not a set animal, laminates a tone of sleep'." 1) it's not even close to one of the longest grammatically-correct palindromes, even among the ones on this page 2) it's not clear it's part of a song, hence very tenuous for it to be in the music section 3) is it even grammatically correct? I guess you could argue that it's grammatically correct though meaningless, but so what?  There are many, many palindromes longer and both grammatically and logically correct.  EG Peter Hilton's "Doc, note -- I dissent.  A fast never prevents a fatness!  I diet on cod." --Msalt 03:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Someone reinserted that quote without comment. I reverted. Please discuss before adding it again.Msalt (talk) 06:06, 22 April 2015 (UTC)


 * As to 2), it is part of a song, and is sung to a melody (see Kew. Rhone.). As to 3) it's grammatically correct, though the meaning (if any) is obscure. 850 C (talk) 19:43, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Chinese poem palindrome?
The following Chinese poem appears under "Palindromes in languages with different writing systems":


 * 枯眼望遙山隔水，往來曾見幾心知. 壺空怕酌一杯酒，筆下難成和韻詩. 迷路阻人離別久，訊音無雁寄回遲. 孤燈夜守長寥寂，夫憶妻兮父憶兒.

I speak no Chinese, but this is obviously not a palindrome in characters. Is it a palindrome in sounds? If so then it's in the wrong place because this section is, as it says at the start, concerned with sequences of characters that remain the same when reversed. If not, then what is it? Matt 20:04, 13 October 2006 (UTC).


 * Beyond that, what encoding is it? I have been unable to read it in UTF-8 or any of the Chinese encodings.  Am I missing something? -Nulbyte 00:12, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Extended 'A man'... Guy Steele
I didn't add this to the main page, as I see there is some discussion about having too many examples already, but thought you may enjoy/consider this.

"A man, a plan, a canoe, pasta, heros, rajahs, a coloratura, maps, snipe, percale, macaroni, a gag, a banana bag, a tan, a tag, a banana bag again (or a camel), a crepe, pins, Spam, a rut, a Rolo, cash, a jar, sore hats, a peon, a canal-- Panama!"

Guy Steele


 * You know what? I prefer the original. It may be a tiny fraction of the length, but it makes sense and even says something. 91.107.154.123 (talk) 01:03, 3 March 2009 (UTC)


 * A recently removed section had the link World's Longest Palindrome Sentence? where there is the much longer example . There exist sources like http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9804EEDD1339F937A25750C0A9649C8B63 so it should probably be readded in some form. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:19, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Nonsensical translation of Chinese palindrome
Currently the article contains this bit:
 * 枯眼望遙山隔水，往來曾見幾心知. 壺空怕酌一杯酒，筆下難成和韻詩. 迷路阻人離別久，訊音無雁寄回遲. 孤燈夜守長寥寂，夫憶妻兮父憶兒. Translation: Litter look up Yaoshan lining between saw several foreigners. Afraid discretionary pot empty glass of wine, described as difficult and rhyme poems. Stop people long separated from their labyrinth, trying to appear later returning geese. Lamp by long lonely night, the husband and wife, you recalled the father recalled abuse.

The English translation is nonsensical and, in some places, incorrect. As it adds nothing to the article, I propose removing the translation. Bhamv 13:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It's total gibberish. I've removed it. BUT ... as per my earlier question, can someone please explain in what way this is a palindrome? Matt 14:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The article pretty much explains it. The poem is a form of Chinese literature called 回文詩 (literal translation would be Returning Text Poem), which is called Palindromic Poetry in English, if the article is to be trusted.  Basically, it's a poem that makes grammatical sense when read forward or backwards.  Since the Chinese written language is built up of individual characters instead of words composed of letters, it's comparatively easier to write such a poem.
 * Though the contents of the two versions of the poem are similar, due to the same characters being used, it's not a palindrome in the strictest sense of the term since the forward and backward readings are not identical. However, in the context of palindromes in non-English languages, it probably still has some value in the article. Bhamv 01:19, 26 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The article explains what a palindrome is. It doesn't seem to explain how this sequence of Chinese characters is palindromic.  If I start at the right hand end of the sequence and read towards the left, there is nothing in common with the sequence read left to right.  SO ... as per Matt's earlier question, can someone please explain in what way this is a palindrome? --King Hildebrand 22:51, 29 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Perhaps it's related to Dimwell arrhythmic rhyming slang, as promulgated by Junior Postman Tolliver Groat in Terry Pratchett's Going Postal? --King Hildebrand 22:51, 29 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that "palindromic" is a misnomer, and that these so-called "palindromic poems" do not actually have to be palindromes at all. I have tried to clarify the text. Matt 23:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC).


 * Its actually a Semordnilap, which is included in the article and in the "see also" section now, but I'm not sure if it was included when first written. 122.107.15.145 (talk) 23:48, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Umm...
I think these palindromes should be deleted as they are err... not very... good to see. But as I am a new user, I dare not delete them, in case these are actually allowed on Wikipedia:


 * 1) Kay, a red nude, peeped under a yak.
 * 2) Anal sex at noon taxes Lana.
 * 3) Naomi, sex at noon taxes, I moan.

Anyway, I added a palindrome and I have an interesting math palindrome: 203313x657624=426756x313302

Littleghostboo [ talk ] 11:15, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Examples of palindromes, unless they are specifically illustrating a point made in the article, should go into one of the "list" articles linked to at the top of the page. Otherwise this article just gets swamped by examples. Accordingly I have moved the list from here to Palindromic Phrases (English), apart from one or two that seemed very poor (and quite a few were already there anyway...) Matt 21:16, 5 February 2007 (UTC).

Google Translator
Well, Google Translator computed that the translation was correct. Am I missing something? ?_?

Sklocke 14:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Several things. Firstly, machine translation is notoriously unreliable.  Secondly, Google Translator only converts simplified Chinese while the poem is in traditional Chinese.  Thirdly, this is a poem from the Song dynasty (around 1000 years ago), and language/grammar conventions have changed since then, not to mention the artistic liberties poets take with grammar, and Google Translator is aimed at modern Chinese with proper grammar72.146.43.92 (talk) 15:51, 30 December 2008 (UTC).


 * Actually, now that I know where that translation came from, it explains a lot. As a native speaker of Chinese, I can say with certainty that the translation doesn't make sense, and should be removed.  Bhamv 14:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

fun erongi lol pop n ->
Hey, I like it, it's cute. But, like Notlob, it don't work. Why? Because of the angle brackets. If you are trying to make a character-level palindrome, then you should have the self-same character in position n reading forwards or backwards. Substituting ">" for "<" and vice versa, while enhancing the visual palindromicity (see Hapax legomenon and Nonce word) it breaks the rules. Leave it in there, but accept that it's not actually quite palindromic! --King Hildebrand 23:11, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Get rid of Polish Section
It's irrelevant in an English-Language Wikipedia. There's a Polish Wikipedia - talk about it there. Youaredj 00:51, 28 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I strongly believe the Polish, German, Latin, Hebrew, and Finnish palindromes are relevant to an educated English speaker. We should also include mention of Georges Perec's poem in French, though it appears as a pair of semordnilaps. –Dan Hoey 18:41, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
 * You may believe that they are relevant, but the foreign language sections are tediously long for an English article. DreamGuy (talk) 14:47, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Are you saying that English speaking world should learn only about English speaking world? Doesn't it matter that polish longest palindrome text contains of more than 33.000 letters? Or that there is a palindrome poem that is 4400 letters long? All written by Tadeusz Morawski. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.11.67.251 (talk) 15:35, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Hebrew palindrome - transliteration
Coming from a fluent Hebrew speaker, the translation from this excerpt:
 * A palindrome with the same property is the Hebrew palindrome "פרשנו רעבתן שבדבש נתבער ונשרף", (PRShW R`BTN ShBDBSh NTB`R WNShRP, or "parashnuw ra`abtan shebadbash nitba'er wenishrap"), meaning "We explained the glutton who is in the honey was burned and incinerated", by Ibn Ezra, referring to the halachic question as to whether a fly landing in honey makes the honey non-kosher.

Should be Parashnu ra'avtan shebadvash nitbaer venishraf. &#126;User:Hangfromthefloor 20:23, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The running-text version appears to be mangled (not a palindrome), and no longer agrees with the word square in the diagram. This is only partially due to the problem with line breaks in right-to-left text included in left-to-right text, and may be due to context-dependent letter forms.  Perhaps the square would best be done as a wikitable and the running-text version omitted if cannot be fixed to be independent of browser width.  I tried to make a wikitable, but I can't figure out how to deal with right-to-left characters. –Dan Hoey 18:36, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

George Crumb
George Crumb also used musical palindrome to text paint the Federico Garcia Lorca poem "¿Porque naci?", the first movement of three in his fourth book of Madrigals.

The poem being referred to is called "Canción del Naranjo Seco", but if it's only a few lines maybe that should be made clear. However, I don't really have any idea what the sentence is talking about so I won't change it. Here's a reference at George Crumb's own site: http://www.georgecrumb.net/comp/madrig-t.html. --Galaxiaad 04:55, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Broken Link in Page
Hrmm... The link under "Types of Palindrome / Symmetry by Lines" (leading to http://www.barryland.com/canon.html) referring to Gödel, Escher, Bach is expired. I don't know of the contents of this page, nor do I know of any sources to recover said content, but if anyone can provide a sufficient replacement link it would be quite helpful. --Daisenji 04:32, 21 March 2007 (UTC) (When did Wiki implement vandalism precautions? Nifty...)

Interstate 94 in San Diego!?
Interstate 94 doesn't run through or even near San Diego! Interstate 94 is a high, even, 2-digit number, meaning it has to run through northern parts of the country, and it does. It's the second-highest 2-digit interstate, making it the second-most ridiculous even number you could put on an interstate in San Diego!

Enough blathering- what may actually help you is knowing that San Diego is home to Interstates 8, 5, 15, and 805. Also in the San Diego area are other interstate-standard freeways, such as California Routes 52, 56, 125, and 163.

Paul the map guy 18:06, 21 March 2007 (UTC)paul_the_map_guy

Morse Code Palindrome
Not sure it's worthy of inclusion, but in the late 1970's I read about a contest (perhaps in Omni or Scientific American) to find the longest Morse Code Palindrome. I wrote a program for the Apple II which would take a word I typed in, convert it to Morse Code, and then see if it was the same backwards and forwards. Not being fluent in Morse Code, I simply took a hardcopy dictionary (the only kind I had in them days), and started at "a". I got as far as "aerometer" which I remember to this day as being the longest one I found before I got tired of the whole thing. The winner found a word much longer than mine, though doing a quick google search I can't find any mention of one longer than aerometer (google tells me "footstool" and "invisible" which are the same length). --Guerre 21:56, 20 April 2007 (UTC)


 * It says here that the longest is "intransigence". That's ignoring spaces... not sure if that's what you intended. Matt 20:20, 10 May 2007 (UTC).

Music Palindrome
The Metalcore band The Fall of Troy has a song with the title "A man, a plan, a canal. Panama." Should that be included in the music section?
 * It would make more sense to eliminate or put into their own section palindromic lyrics as oposed to actual musical palindromes.  Haydn's minuet would make a fine example of the latter.   Are their erlier examples than Machault's Ma fin est mon commencement?

Accents in Spanish
A couple of the Spanish palindromes are missing accents: "Dábale arroz a la zorra el abad" and "La ruta nos aportó otro paso natural". Should they, because it's wordplay, just be omitted for the article? I'm not a native speaker, but it seems kind of poor form. (And, all the Google hits for "la ruta nos aporto" - Spanish-language hits - seem to have the accent on.) I'm going to put them in, and if someone disagrees, they can take them back out. (And if that's poor Wikipedia etiquette for any reason, sorry - I don't do a whole lot of stuff around here, so I don't know the culture.) Number3Pencils 05:45, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Another kind of palindrome
What is a word like live (evil backwards) called? I read somewhere that it too is a palindrome, but a certain sort of palindrome. I think a heterogeneous or heterologous palindrome. Something like that. Does any one know? I can't find a mention of it anywhere. 24.182.226.45 02:39, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Semordnilaps. ALTON .ıl  09:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Judgment call?
Under the "long palindromes" section, the palindrome "detartrated" is [in my opinion unfairly] judged as "contrived". This is in the sentence immediately after the one that cites "tattarrattat" which is obviously far more contrived. --Teebone51 23:26, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I note that googling "detartrated" turns up many occurrences unrelated to its typographic interest. Perhaps once it was contrived, but it is being legitimately used now. 198.99.123.63 (talk) 23:18, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Correction to Palindrome article
The Wikipedia article on palindromes contains this sentence: "To celebrate the palindromic moment 20:02 02/20 2002, Peter Norvig wrote on that day (20 February 2002) a computer program which produced what may be the world's longest palindromic sentence,[5] running to 17,259 words.[6]" This sentence is no longer correct.

For whatever it is worth, I have written a palindrome generator that on October 8, 2007 produced 10 palindromes that are about 20,000 words in length (the longest is 20,005, the shortest 20,000). I will be happy to send the longest one to whomever wants it. Or should I simply embed it in another comment?

The palindrome has these characteristics:

20,005 words (76,836 characters) in length no proper nouns vast majority of words used are quite common no word appears twice in succession word use frequency is a maximum of 1% (no word occurs more than 200 times) no phrase (word couplet) appears more than once in either half no nested palindromes

Like Norvig's and any very long palindrome, my 20,005 word palindrome makes no sense and is not a sentence. However, it does break away from the laundry-list format ("a man, a plan, a This, a That, …").

My program is capable of much longer palindromes, as well.

I will be glad to discuss this matter. Certainly no one should change the article without first seeing my 20,005 word one. I am not editing the article on palindromes myself, since I am a party to the change and because I am relatively new to Wikipedia.

Gerald M. Berns wandjberns@starpower.net —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.44.55.135 (talk) 21:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for posting here instead of adding it to the article which would have violated Conflict of interest. Wikipedia content should be based on published reliable sources. See also No original research. The current source to Norvig's palindrome is his own website but Peter Norvig appears notable and many others have commented on the palindrome. It doesn't sound like your palindromes are currently suited for Wikipedia and discussing them with editors here is not enough when published sources are lacking. But maybe the sentence about Norvig should change "what may be" to something like "what may have been". PrimeHunter 23:08, 8 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the quick response. By the way, I have sent the palindrome in question to Peter Norvig, who thanked me.  I fully agree that a palindrome of 20,000+ words is not suitable for publication, in Wikipedia or anywhere else.  However, if Wikipedia saw fit to mention that Norvig's 17,259 palindrome "may be the world's longest," then that citation, which is no longer true, should be replaced by a citation of mine.  To use that "published sources are lacking" as a reason for not making reference to my palindrome seems silly when I am offering to send it to you so you can see for yourself.  Give me an email address to send it to, and I will be happy to do so.

G.M. Berns66.44.55.159 16:08, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I am just one of a huge number of Wikipedia contributers and I have no special authority over this article. Convincing an editor through personal communication is not sufficient and there is no reason to send me your palindrome. Wikipedia has specific content policies like Verifiability and No original research. There are things I know are true but don't add to Wikipedia because they don't have an acceptable published source. PrimeHunter 22:47, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I am dismayed by the double standard that your responses have cited for inclusion of new information into Wikipedia. For those who are not deemed "notable," a published source is required. But for those who are considered "notable," one's own website is considered source enough. This is an extraordinary admission, which someone at Wikipedia ought to review.

The issue, as it stands, devolves to what criteria Wikipedia uses for determining whether one is "notable." Apparently my roughly two dozen published papers (including two in "Communications of the ACM" and one in an IEEE publication) are insufficient to reach that pinnacle. Please tell me what else I must do to become sufficiently "notable" to have Wikipedia recognize my 23,036-word palindrome (available upon request) as the world's largest. Shall I create a web page and refer to it there? Would that be sufficient? G.M. Berns


 * See Reliable sources and Verifiability. Maybe I should have said reliable instead of notable. I commented on Norvig and have not made any attempt to determine how notable or reliable you are since it's irrelevant when nobody has mentioned your palindrome and it's unpublished. The only known mention of the palindrome is on this page, and Wikipedia pages (including talk pages) are not allowed as sources. And note that I wrote about Norvig's palindrome: many others have commented on the palindrome. Publishing your palindrome on a web page with an identifiable author would be a good start. Getting others to mention it would also be good, especially if they are considered reliable sources. But I cannot say precisely in advance what will be sufficient, and I'm just one editor. Other editors may disagree and change my edit. A great way to show that you have improved Norvig's palindrome would be getting him to say so on his website with a link to your palindrome. PrimeHunter 23:30, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, I get it. It's a hodge-podge of logic, but I get it. Wikipedia will only recognize something as "true" after someone else who is "notable" or "reliable" has (of course my palindromes are unmentioned and unpublished; they are NEW this month). I will go the personal website route; Peter Norvig has generously offered to link to my site from his, once it is available. Then we will take it from there. GMB 10/23/200769.143.108.52 14:14, 23 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Good you get it. Wikipedia is not like an academic journal where people can submit new unpublished research for evaluation. We rely on what reliable sources have already published. Verifiability says:
 * The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source.
 * There doesn't appear to be any standardized rules for valid palindromes so it would be great if Norvig or a reliable source accepted the palindrome as a record (they don't have to specify rules). I have searched palindromic primes where there is no doubt about what is valid. PrimeHunter 15:40, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I have taken your suggestion. In response to my informing Peter Norvig that the web page devoted to my work on palindromes is now in operation, Peter sent me an email on 11/7/2007: "Good. I linked to you from my page.  I hope Wikipedia will take you seriously now." His page that links to mine is http://www.norvig.com/palindrome.html, and my web page of interest is http://www.bernsrite.com/GMB/palindrome.htm. If there is more that is required to bring the Wikipedia article on palindromes up to date, please let me know. (There is also a set of proposed standards for very long palindromes on my web page.)68.32.127.0 20:15, 9 November 2007 (UTC) G. M. Berns


 * I just saw this late comment and have added mention of the palindrome. I don't think Wikipedia should judge the longest "valid" palindrome when reliable sources mention no rules. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:34, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Computation Theory
Someone put the "too much jargon" tag on the Computation Theory section. Does this section even belong in this article? If so, should it be simplified? Explained further? I'll work on it if I can get some consensus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Phildonnia (talk • contribs) 23:21, 2 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't really understand it, but I would say it probably doesn't belong here. It seems to be using palindromes primarily as an example to illustrate various concepts in computation theory, rather than discussing palindromes for their own sake. I think it would be better in an article discussing the concepts that are being illustrated, possibly with a link from this article. Matt 14:51, 5 January 2008 (UTC). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.150.100.9 (talk)

Russian "infinite" palindromes
Don't all languages allow infinite palindromes? Hyacinth (talk) 22:39, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, some languages have no writing system and no concept of palindromes... But apart from that, you have a point. Depending on rules for "legal" palindromes, infinite lists of repeated words could probably be made in most cases, and I see no reason to single out Russian unless reliable sources have done it. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:59, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Acoustic section
The section added today by Raybrain doesn't make sense to me. How can "I got" be an acoustic palindrome? The reference is apparently just a recording with no claims about palindromes, and it sounds partially artificially constructed to me. I think the section should be removed as original research unless a far better source is given. It's also mentioned in Phonetic palindrome but it was apparently copied from an older occurrence here. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

It is rather surprising that a recording of the spoken phrase "I got" sounds the same played forwards or backwards, but this is indeed the case, as is indicated by the sound-file demonstration at the link site (please note that the sound files on that page are visually represented by graphics of their waveforms, rather than the usual written titles or descriptions - the example in question is the 5th example down the list. It features repeated iterations of the phrase "I got" edited in combination with object nouns such as "screams" and "power"*. The triangles at either end of the sound file are the start buttons for playback from either end of the sound file. The five reiterations of "I got" in either direction are a mixture of forward and backward examples. The "I got" phrases don't have a separate emphasized phoneme for the final "t" and in Burroughs pronunciation the written "i" and "o" sound almost identical. Played in either direction this phrase differs only in a slight downturn or upturn in pitch. This is not a trick. I realize that I'd never tested the sound file, so I have just made a very small (8k) mp3 file of just the "I got phrase", which I checked in Quicktime by enabling the "view" option Loop Back and Forth. I works!: http://www.6q.com/downloads/demo/. (I also just made a soundfile of myself speaking the phrase and this is also intelligibly "I got" in both directions, although not as impressive as the Burroughs reading. The piece has been published on CD: http://www.sfu.ca/~truax/cd8.html, and there is a statement from the author: "On Burroughs and Burrows..." http://www.pfony.com/.    *The recordings were appropriated from a vinyl record edition of a 1965 spoken word record of William S. Burroughs reading, entitled Call Me Burroughs (ESP) - Oswald has claimed that he met with Burroughs in 1975 when the two shook hands in agreement for Oswald to reuse the material. This meeting was witnessed by Burrough's executor James Grauerholz. Raybrain (talk) 17:21, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Your full text is:
 * The only known palindrome in which a recorded phrase of speech sounds the same when it is played backwards was discovered by the composer John Oswald in 1974 while he was working on audio tape versions of the cut-up technique using recorded readings by William S. Burroughs. Oswald discovered that in repeated instances of Burroughs speaking the phrase "I got", that the recordings sound identical when played backwards or forwards.
 * How much of this has a reliable source? The claim that it is "the only known" would certainly require one. At http://www.pfony.com/ Oswald writes:
 * I spent an inordinate amount of time constructing some miniature tape pieces, which I call 'Burrows', based on texts as read by Bill Burroughs. ... Many of the Burrows pieces have an odd characteristic - they are reversible compositions, incorporating things like acoustic palindromes (when you play Bill Burroughs saying "I GOT" backwards it still, amazingly sounds like "I GOT").
 * It sounds like considerable audio manipulation was involved in making these sound bits, and he changed Burroughs to "Burrows", maybe to indicate it was no longer the real Burroughs. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:29, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I have access to a copy of Call Me Burroughs, the phonodisc Oswald used as a source, so I could check the original "I got" - I suspect it will be the same. But even if Oswald did manipulate the phrase, the sound file is still an example of a legible acoustic palindrome. Raybrain (talk) 14:08, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
 * It would be nice if the site provided some annotation explaining these tracks. I suggest you cite this page first and make the link to the tracks secondary. The "only known palindrome" is not supported by your source. --Jtir (talk) 15:47, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Although I don't agree that annotation is necessary in this audio-centric as opposed to text-centric world where the example (literally) speaks for itself, I think it's a good suggestion to add the pfony homepage where additional info resides. The "only known palindrome" isn't supported or refuted by any source I can find, which is why I ventured to call it that, but since there isn't any support, I will reduce the speculated claim to uniqueness. Raybrain (talk) 00:17, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Long palindromes
It was decided years ago not to make such lists in this article. Feel free to go back int he edit history, extract what I have deleted and move it to another article. I will not be doing it because the last list of palindromes seems to have been deleted right out of the encyclopaedia. Jok2000 (talk) 12:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Where is the decision documented? We can do without some things like unsourced claims of "longest palindrome in language X", but deleting the whole section seems a bit much to me. I think we should include some sourced English palindromes, but not a long list. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Under "No More English Examples Please" Jok2000 (talk) 22:44, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * First I want to note, in case anyone considers this a conflict of interest, that I am the editor of a zine called "The Palindromist" and write palindromes myself.
 * I believe you are missing the point of that discussion. The important paragraph was "Unless there is a famous or historical context, there is no need to add any more English examples to this article. I suggest people delete the mundane or uninteresting ones as this articles really should consist more of the history significance or mathematics of palindromes."
 * The complaint was about people simply adding their favorite palindromes (typically all about the same length and unremarkable) in long lists of English palindromes. In contrast, these long palindromes are NOT listed at all, for reasons of length, but described.  And it is clearly notable to the history of palindromes that two people wrote palindromic NOVELS of around 50,000 words.
 * This section could certainly be shortened, but it's unreasonable to remove it entirely. I am reverting the change for the time being until we can work out a consensus on it. Msalt (talk) 05:07, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I was the one involved in that discussion, and I was the one who spent 3 hours reoganizing the page at that time, and eventually, although I reorganized it, the word list I separated out was eventually deleted right out of the encyclopaedia. In the same manner, I was bypassing a lot of debate, as the foreign language long-palindromes don't belong here.  The point of the debate is that this is a description of palindromes, not a database of them, and certainly not in every language, just notable ones.  The consensus was worked out, largely without my input, I'm just the working-stiff that implemented the consensus with 3 hours of work, that could (eventually) have been implemented by a simple section delete as I have just done. Jok2000 (talk) 17:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Alright I took another crack at it, removing only the repeated parts (the Finnish palindrome was lower down). I'm still against keeping the Russian bit, but at least its cute.  I see that my delete did take out some notable long palindromes in books, and I apologize for that.  It appears now to be an text-selection error on my part.  I got the impression the section was on long palindromes in foreign languages. Jok2000 (talk) 17:44, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

this page is a disaster
Why do we have so many palindromes from non-English languages? Over at Spoonerism we agreed to remove non-English examples. It should be mentioned that other languages have them, but that is it. The reason that there are other wikipedias than English is so we don't have to have every other language here. If someone wants to know paliindromes in Spanish, then they should click on the link to the spanish wiki. Also, there are FAR too many examples on this page. This page really needs to be cleaned up and i will be bold and do that. Masterhatch (talk) 17:55, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree there are too many examples and it's a good idea to delete them, but I object to the idea of simply removing examples from other languages. If the other language has some feature that makes it easy to compose palindromes (for example) then it is worth keeping and pointing out. It is an English article about palindromes, not an article about English palindromes. Shreevatsa (talk) 23:29, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
 * BTW, I was only objecting to the general idea; looking more carefully I don't think anything that you've removed is worth bringing back :-) Shreevatsa (talk) 23:44, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Fermat's Challenge
This page is a disaster! I noticed that the entry on Fermat's principle deals with a subject that is arguably more notable and more complicated. Yet, that entry is succinct, and very well organized. I challenge the editors of this page to shorten the entry so that it holds up to Fermat's principle in length, plus style and organization. Carlos_X (talk) 23:02, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Why did you delete my palindrome? It's a perfect palindrome. ("S" is not so hard, Dr. A. Host on, sis!) Marcovitaly (talk) 23:00, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
 * A reminder: Palindromes don't have to make sense.
 * I deleted it because A. this is not supposed to be a list of palindromes and B. Original research Masterhatch (talk) 23:13, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
 * As it is, there are far too many examples that are not notable and many of the examples already here should probably be deleted. By deleting your example, i was just keeping the list from growing even more. Masterhatch (talk) 23:16, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

strange font
The font in the last half of the "History" section of this article is wrong. I don't know how to fix it. Anyone? Masterhatch (talk) 16:45, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Broken in, fixed in . PrimeHunter (talk) 18:53, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I think
I think that "Ten animals I slam in a net" should be in there and "Did God live on a Toyota? No evil dog did. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.64.125.243 (talk) 23:08, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As it is, there are far too many examples. More is less and less is more, so to speak. This article isn't supposed to be a list of all palindromes. All we need is a few examples (and we have way more than a few) to make the point. And the point is well made. Masterhatch (talk) 04:00, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Racecar
What on earth is the added value of the 'See also' reference to 'racecar'? Or, in other words, which one does not belong in the following list: ambigram, palindromic number, reverse spelling, or racecar? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.160.196.32 (talk)
 * Hello, thanks for pointing it out, and welcome to Wikipedia. Wikipedia encourages you to be bold and fix such things you see. If your edits are reverted, you can then discuss. Regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 15:40, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Biased Section
Under acoustic palindromes, the following "This clever piece" is biased. I recommend removing it. Sircmpwn (talk) 20:09, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

"Sows the seeds"?
The translation "sows the seeds" is nonsense. Temet means "hold'", opera means "works" and rotas means "wheels". Where are the seeds and sows in this sentence? --Jidu Boite (talk) 15:55, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The first word you quote is "tenet," not "temet," if that makes a difference. Opera means 'works" in the sense of "artistic creations," not like the very "works his magic," right? What is SATOR?  No one wrote an explanation at the time the squares were created (1st century CE).  No one knows the word AREPO either, so it's assumed to be a name.
 * I'm not a Latin speaker, but I have read that interpretation in many books (which could just be repeated one person's theory). It's a famously opaque sentence, and many think it was mostly a secret Christian symbol ("tenet" forms a cross in the middle of the square).  Word squares are extraordinarily hard to create; no one has ever made a comparable English palindromic word square in centuries of trying, so it's no surprise it might be an awkwards phrase.Msalt (talk) 20:22, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the dutch version of Wikipedia has the following interpretation "The sower collaborates on the seasons' yieldings by his labour". They have some explanation about the latin words, but I'm not sure how reliable it is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dominique.devriese (talk • contribs) 11:17, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Is Lost Generation a palindrome or a semordnilap?
In the "Types" section, the poem Lost Generation was given as an example of a line-by-line palindrome. According to the definitions given in the article, however, that poem is clearly a semordnilap, not a palindrome. I have moved the mention of that poem into the Semordilap section.
 * hello, and don't forget to sign your comments! However, you are not correct.  A palindrome is a string of text that has the same letters backwards and forwards.  A semordnilap is a pair of strings that are the reverse of each other (e.g. live/evil). Most palindromes can be split into a semordnilap pair, and most semordnilap pairs can be combined into a palindrome, though it might not make much sense, and you may need to add a few letters.  I will fix.Msalt (talk) 22:29, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, you're right and I stand corrected. I was confused by the fact that the YouTube video shows the poem reversing back to the original.  But on further examination, the actual poem ends with the words "reverse it" leaving it to the reader to do the reversal in their mind.  I will self-revert.Msalt (talk) 23:13, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Obscure Semordnilaps
acetone / enoteca ...? C'mon, give me a break. There are less obscure semordnilaps, like regal / lager. Myost (talk) 07:40, 28 November 2011 (UTC)Mark
 * Agreed, and using 2 languages degrades it further.Msalt (talk) 22:29, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Suggested additions
Here are two things that may belong in this page, but I will not edit anything connected to them because I am involved in them. 1) The Palindromist Magazine, since 1996, is in print and online at http://www.palindromist.org. It's the world's  premier magazine of palindromes and may be appropriate for an external link. 2) The first ever World Palindrome Championship, a live competition organized by Will Shortz, will be held March 16, 2012 in Brooklyn. Here are a couple of links:    Msalt (talk) 23:08, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Another addition worth making is the annual SymmyS Awards for outstanding palindrome achievement. Again, I was involved so one of you should step up and add it. If no one does, I will go ahead unless persuaded otherwise, but here is my declaration of involvement. Sources: New York Times: preview http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/a-magazine-a-plan-a-contest-symmys/ wrapup http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/11/palindrome-prize-winners-announced-in-oregon/ Times of London http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/americas/article3709169.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2013_03_08 USA Today       http://www.usatoday.com/story/popcandy/2013/03/11/palindromes-symmys/1978723/ New York Daily News http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2013/03/and-the-best-palindrome-of-2012-goes-to Time Magazine http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/03/06/madam-im-adam-palindrome-masters-go-head-to-head-in-championship/ Salt Lake City Tribune http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/entertainment2/56005541-223/palindromes-wike-symmys-palindrome.html.csp The Week http://theweek.com/article/index/241458/the-week-in-words

Computation Theory B.S.
You can recognize that a string is palindromic without requiring any additional that is proportional to the size of the input. Simply read the characters from the beginning and end simultaneously and compare the pairs of characters retrieved. That palindromes form a non-regular context-free language is true, and does have performance implications for an automaton which takes the characters from left to right and has no random access (is unable to seek to the end of the sequence and then read backwards). This does not, however, amount to the non-existence of shortcut algorithms which are not based on such an automaton. (The numbers required to do the addressing on a sequence of data have a number of bits proportional to the logarithm of the input size, but that is a different issue which affects a broad range of algorithms, and is often ignored in analysis.) 192.139.122.42 (talk) 21:12, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Dates
There is a section on palindromic dates which seems to consist of original research. The only reference in the section is to a BBC News article, cited to support the sentence Palindromic dates are of interest to recreational mathematicians and numerologists, and sometimes generate comment in the general media. It seems that the section is being actively edited by people adding various examples that they have generated themselves. Is there any reason to have this section — it appears to have been given undue weight? Deltahedron (talk) 07:10, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
 * No support for this material, so I'm deleting it. Deltahedron (talk) 17:59, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

First Sentence
I changed the first sentence to define a palindrome as something "that reads the same forward or reversed." Previously it said that it had the "same meaning" either direction, but that implies it could be a different word that was a synonym. Please feel free to word this differently. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.11.97.161 (talk) 21:03, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Biological structures
Maybe RNA is a better example than DNA because the palindromic pattern can be better justified by the secondary structure of RNA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Habil zare (talk • contribs) 02:19, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Classification system
This edit was reverted on the grounds that it is "esoteric, not notable, undocumented". I'm a bit confused by those arguments. Last time I checked there were no rules against adding references in other languages when an English-language reference is missing. Also its notability should be obvious since we're talking about palindromes. And how can it be undocumented if I included a full textual reference to back up the information? The palindromist in question is also notable in his field, he's not some guy. Should we shun his classification proposal simply because he's not an English speaker? Pikolas (talk) 12:38, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Hm, I think there is a rule about foreign-language-only references being disfavored because most editors will be incapable of fairly evaluating them, and I believe this sources is a perfect case in point. Very few English speaking editors also speak Portugese; I don't. Also, the translation appears to be your own; how can we know if it is accurate?
 * So you have a reference showing that one person in Brazil had a concept of how to classify these phrases. This system is completely unknown in the United States, which I can say with some confidence since I am the editor of the Palindromist Magazine, which is the primary authority on the subject in the United States.
 * Palindromes are not mollusks or stars -- there is not a scientific rationale for a classification system to define them. It's fine if someone wants to spend their time developing one, but unless and until it is is widely accepted -- basically, until it is notable to have its own wikipedia page -- I don't feel that encyclopedic to add it here. I have myself written several analytical articles about the structure of palindromes and the skills required to create them effectively, in English, but I don't feel any of those would be notable here either.Msalt (talk) 03:57, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I still feel that this section is inappropriate, but rather than reverting a revert, are there any other users who can add their perspective? Thanks. Msalt (talk) 03:09, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Msalt, you're correct that non-English sources are disfavoured, though they are permitted when there is no English-language source of similar quality and relevance. (See our policy Verifiability.)  If you are worried that Pikolas hasn't properly summarized the source, you can request a translated quotation from another editor.
 * That said, there do seem to be a couple issues with the material. First, the way it is presented in the article, in the lede of the "Types" section, imparts great authority to it, as if to imply that Marinho's classification is an overarching one, and possibly the only one.  While his classification scheme seems reasonable (perhaps even a bit too obvious), it is restricted to the semantics of palindromes.  If the material is to be kept, I'd be happier if it were moved to its own subsection, which could be expanded with reference to other semantics-based categorization schemes.
 * Second, I am not sure if the source meets our criteria for reliable sources. Marinho's article is published on Usina de letras, which from what I can tell is a website for contributors to self-publish literary works.  (Please correct me if I'm wrong; I don't read Portuguese very well at all.)  We do sometimes permit self-published works from recognized experts—do we have any evidence from reliable sources that Marinho is a recognized expert in palindromes?  Pikolas linked to the Rômulo Marinho article on the Portuguese Wikipedia, whose only source supporting the claim about palindromes is a blog post (and a dead link at that).  Unless we can establish that independent third parties consider Marinho to be a palindrome expert, or unless his classification scheme has been published by a reputable publisher, then it probably needs to be removed per our guideline on identifying reliable sources. —Psychonaut (talk) 07:36, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * There being no further discussion, I have BOLDly removed the disputed material. I suggest it not be reinserted without first resuming the discussion here. —Psychonaut (talk) 08:24, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

New Entry for Eodermdrome; Add to "See Also" Section.
I can't find any Wikipedia entry for eodermdrome. The eodermdrome was conceived and described by Bloom, Kennedy and Wexler in Word Ways magazine: Bloom, Gary S.; Kennedy, John W.; and Wexler, Peter J. (1980) "Ensnaring the Elusive Eodermdrome," Word Ways: Vol. 13: Iss. 3, Article 2, 131-140. There is a free download here: Eodermdromes; Word Ways; 1980.

Here are a couple of links from a google search:

World Aligned: eodermdrome

Oulipo : eodermdrome (There is a wiki entry for Oulipo, but Oulipo did not invent or conceive of the concept.)

Can someone help to create a Wikipedia entry for Eodermdrome? I can start with a cut and paste definition from Eckler ("Dictionary Eodermdromes", Word Ways, 1980, 13(3), 141-146. Free download): ''"A word (or, more generally, a phrase such as 'stray satyrs') which has a non-planar spelling net has been christened an eodermdrome by Bloom, Kennedy and Wexler in (Word Ways, 1980, 13(3), Article 2)." ''

I think eodermdrome should be added to the "See Also" section of palindrome and many other word play entries. There could also be cross-references to Graph Theory, Kuratowski's theorem and non-planar graph pages.

For now, I have posted this suggestion on the palindrome talk page only, not on any other word play or graph theory pages. If you think it would be of interest to others on other word play pages, especially those who might help to create an eodermdrome wiki entry, please post elsewhere. AdderUser (talk) 19:55, 24 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I just took a stab at creating the eodermdrome wiki page. It is in the queue awaiting approval which might take 2-3 weeks due to the backlog. AdderUser (talk) 22:52, 24 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Eodermdrome just got approved. That was quick. Feel free to make improvements. AdderUser (talk) 02:06, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Palindrome speech
A couple of times I've tried to write about phonemic palindromes, but the text has been undone. Palindrome music chapter contains very much information, so why not palindrome speech is not noted? The difference between written and spoken palindromes is vast in English. Roman languages Latin, Spanish and Italian are much more phonetic than English. "Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas" is a palindrome spoken, too, and that's an essential part of the sentence's magic. The most phonetic languages are Finnish and Estonian. "Phonemic" means that when You hear a new word, You already know how it should be written. In English this doesn't work: if an Englishman says "ai", You must think is it "I" or "eye". This unlogical writing developed under French influence. Richard the Lionheart, for example, spoke French, not English. It's impossible to change the writing system anymore, but everyone should be aware of the problem: a lot of brain capacity is needed only to remember how the words are written. That's why English children never ever will be on top in the PISA-test in reading and writing, I guess. I hope an English expert of linguistics would write about this subject crystal clear.--Risto hot sir (talk) 18:13, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Finnish names
The Finnish names chapter should be undone: I live in Finland, but have never heard surnames Lamme and Rannas, and the first names are not of Finnish origin (except Asko).--Risto hot sir (talk) 18:13, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Is the unsourced claim that "Palindromic names are very common in Finland" true, in your experience? --McGeddon (talk) 13:01, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
 * It's true, because more than 100 000 palindromes can be written in Finnish, many of them are names.Risto hot sir (talk) 13:46, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

error between english and hebrew version
In the current english version it says
 * credited to Abraham ibn Ezra in 1924,[1] and referring to the halachic question as to whether a fly landing in honey makes the honey treif (non-kosher).

However on the hebrew version it credits R Yonnassan Ibishitz for saying this sentance17:18, 12 December 2016 (UTC)96.56.20.154 (talk)

cat example
An editor is insisting on truncating "Was it a car or a cat I saw?" to "Was it a cat I saw?" I don't see a problem with the longer sentence. It's a grammatical palindrome, and makes more sense than many other palindromes. Meters (talk) 07:50, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree that the longer version is grammatically correct and I also understand that one needs to be flexible when interpreting the meaning of some of these. However, I do agree with the editor (but not with his actions) who wanted the shorter version. In my mind it is a better palindrome because it is a more meaningful statement. Artificially pumping up the length of a palindrome may appeal to some, but we are not trying to set records here. Since we must be selective in the examples we choose for the article, I would, in general, opt for the more meaningful ones. --Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 19:12, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * "Artificially pumping it up"? The car version is a fairly well-known palindrome. I see no reason to shorten it. If we want to be selective about what we include I'd much rather get rid of complete nonsense such as "Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog." Meters (talk) 20:07, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * "Was it a cat I saw?" is actually a Sam Loyd puzzle, but they're both relatively well-known, either seems fine here. Leaning slightly towards "was it a car or a cat" because that's the one I've heard cited more often as an example of a palindrome. --McGeddon (talk) 20:15, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * To me, the "car or a cat" version was fine, if a little bit silly. But if we're cutting out silly, the lasagna hog example is indefensible, I'd have reservations about a metal worm being eaten by an anthropomorphic owl, the Panama thing is inaccurate (multiple men and plans over many years) and the Nixon one would have to go as well (the X in Nixon makes it a palindrome). Rather than taking the ax to anything playful, I hope we can agree that literal meaning is not what makes for a particularly nifty palindrome. Currently we're hedging our bets, with the "car or a cat" example in the lead and the cat-only example in the body.
 * Note that while I support the "car or a cat" example, I would draw a hard line at any yahoo who tried to expand "A man, a plan, a canal - Panama" to "A man, a plan, a cat, a ham, a yak, a yam, a hat, a canal, Panama." :) EricEnfermero (Talk) 02:31, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
 * The sentence with car and cat is grammatically correct, but does anyone really use it in real life? Everybody sees the vast difference between a car and a cat. That's why I support the shorter version. Risto hot sir (talk) 11:51, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't know that I've ever used either of those phrases in my life... but I know that I've never said lasagna hog, metal worm or anything resembling the Panama phrase. It seems that the cat/car example is inviting us to apply a unique standard to it, and I can't determine why. EricEnfermero (Talk) 03:22, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
 * The hedging does seem unneccesarily confusing to the reader, to quote one palindrome in the lede and then a very slightly different version of it later on. I'm not sure Palindrome even needs more than one example to explain to the reader what a "sentence or phrase" is. We get onto "Famous English palindromes" in a later section. --McGeddon (talk) 09:31, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
 * The palindrome is "Was it a cat I saw?" I corrected what you wrote. Böri (talk) 08:08, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
 * "A man, a plan, a canal - Panama" is not meaningless... (It was about the man who planned The Panama Canal.) But "A man, a plan, a cat, a ham, a yak, a yam, a hat, a canal, Panama." is meaningless. / I didn't see that you were already talking about this. Böri (talk) 08:24, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by "The palindrome is..."? Both versions of the sentence are palindromes. --McGeddon (talk) 10:11, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
 * , your sentence is meaningless, and your actions are reprehensible. Please stop edit warring to make sure your version (no one owns this ~ have you read about ownership?) stays.
 * As far as the car/cat question in general, i would say that i have generally heard/seen it in the longer version, though my anecdotal evidence isn't worth much when it comes to our practice; does anyone have references one way or the other? Happy days, LindsayHello 16:06, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think we were intentionally hedging our bets by using the longer version in one place and the shorter version in another. The editor who was removing the long version was only doing it in the one place (at least until the second occurrence was mentioned here). It happened to have been out when the editor was blocked for edit warring, and I left it as was pending consensus on this page. My assumption was that we would make both occurrences the same, either short or long, once this discussion concluded, but your observation that we don't need multiple examples to demonstrate what a sentence palindrome is is spot on. Pick one and be done with it. Parts of this article seem to be becoming simply a place for editors to document their favourite palindromes, rather than an article about palindromes.
 * And I have to agree with 's observation that editors seem to be attempting to apply a unique restriction to this particular palindrome. No-one has ever used "Able was I ere I saw Elba." except as an example of a palindrome (Napoleon Bonaparte, to whom it is apocryphally attributed, died almost three decades before this palindrome was invented in 1848). We are not going to throw out one of the first, and arguably the best ever, English palindromes because no-one (other than perhaps a few literary-minded Englishmen who may have sprained something while visiting Elba) has ever had occasion to use it in real life. And what about the Guinness world record Finnish word "saippuakivikauppias" (a soapstone vendor)? We list it as the world's longest palindromic word in everyday use, but then we jump through hoops to get "saippuakalasalakauppias" (a soapfish bootlegger) and  "saippuakuppinippukauppias" (a soap dish wholesale vendor, but literally a soap dish bundle vendor). That seems even more contrived and less likely to be used than "... car or a cat ...". Meters (talk) 19:35, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, we've spent too much time discussing about cats and cars. In Finland only "saippuakauppias" is widely accepted, 'cause it has a meaning. Actually the Panama-sentence is not wholly English: "Panama" is a Spanish (or Indian language perhaps) word. In the Spanish Palindrome-article You can read really good and used ones! Risto hot sir (talk) 21:08, 10 February 2017 (UTC) The palindromes should be so natural that the could be in a novel, and people wouldn't notice they're palindomes. What do You think of this one?: Dr! Ale? Lard? Risto hot sir (talk) 21:21, 10 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Above Risto said: "Everybody sees the vast difference between a car and a cat. That's why I support the shorter version." Risto was right. Others are all wrong! You can't write meaningless things in an encyclopedia! Böri (talk) 06:54, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

But people have written meaningless things (lasagna hog and the others I mentioned above) or historically inaccurate things (the Panama example I pointed out above), apparently for quite some time, and we seem to be only concerned about one example. Everyone sees the difference between cats and cars, but why would anyone be questioning whether they had just seen a cat? A cat is among the simplest animals to identify. That example doesn't make literal sense, but it's commonly cited as an English-language palindrome, just like the longer version is. EricEnfermero (Talk) 07:49, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
 * In a dark forest it could be a meaningful question, when You are not sure if it was a cat or a fox or a rabbit, for example. Risto hot sir (talk) 10:20, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
 * "Was it a car or a cat I saw?" = unacceptable! It looks silly! Böri (talk) 06:34, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Risto, a memory game or test comes to mind, in which a person must match or recall images of certain objects. It would be easy for a person to get a little confused about recalling the next item (car, cat or otherwise) in a series of memorized images. For some of us, that's at least as plausible as being in a dark forest. We still haven't fully addressed the issue of eliminating implausible palindromes from the rest of the entry. EricEnfermero (Talk) 06:47, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly what constitutes a reliable source for a palindrome discussion, but here are a few references in which the longer car/cat example is cited as a palindrome. Some of these include the shorter sentence as well. ,, , ,. EricEnfermero (Talk) 07:06, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, the first link puts both of them. Böri (talk) 07:14, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * "Was it a cat I saw?" could be a sentence in Kipling's Jungle Book. It's not an artificial palindrome like the most are. Everybody accepts this sentence, so why to fight for three letters ("car")? Risto hot sir (talk) 10:14, 13 February 2017 (UTC) Imagine a fairytale in which a mouse wonders if there's a cat or a squirrel. It's the matter of life and death! - Long ago, before there was writing, the poets used alliteration and rhymes to prevent the story from changing. If they or the Mighty God would have used palindromes the story wouldn't have changed at all, 'cause the sentences would not have been palindromes anymore. - I miss really good palindromes in English language, therefore the very best ones of other languages should be presented in this site. Examples: Danish "Du er Freud?" ("Are You Freud?"; a very sarcastic question), Finnish "Aivot avaavat ovia" ("Brains open doors"; a good aphorism), "Irak: Koraania lainaa rokkari" ("Iraq: the rocker quotes the Quran"; that's what happens in the Middle East), "Allas nakukansalla" ("Naked people in the pool"), "Neulo, saat niin taas oluen!" ("Knit, so You'll get a beer again!")...Risto hot sir (talk) 12:35, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * , forgive me, but your last point (foreign language examples) is well out of place. This question has been argued previously; i seem to recall that consensus was formed, not to include vast numbers of palindromes from non-English languages; if you are questioning that consensus, i suggest you start a new section on this page.
 * As far as i can tell, the current issue is not the "fight for three letters" so much as the bull-headed, inappropriate and contrary to policy way that another editor has been trying to ensure that his chosen version is that seen. There is discussion about the "three letters" (it's actually six, "a car or"), and consensus seems to be that the longer version should be used, though that may, just may, be open to interpretation.  The point is that there has been edit warring to get rid of those six letters, and that is never right; now, i believe, the page has been protected so that no one can edit it ~ a poor result, which is why we don't permit edit warring.  You will want to be careful that you don't give Böri the idea that his methods are acceptable, in your argument for the shorter sentence.
 * For the larger point, which sentence we use, if i wasn't clear above let me be so here: The longer version is to be preferred on the grounds that:
 * Longer is generally better with palindromes;
 * It does, indeed, make sense, both grammatically and in reality;
 * There are references which list it, as shown by above; and
 * It is a palindrome.
 * Happy days, LindsayHello 16:46, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * This is Your site, so You can do whatever You decide. I'm only suggesting, that the English speaking people should have the right to know about the best palindromes in the world (what's already the case in Spanish, French, Finnish, Danish, Estonian etc. articles). There's no question to include vast numbers of foreign palindromes, only the VERY BEST ones, which You can choose. The longer one is usually not the better one - like it's also not with poems and novels. Risto hot sir (talk) 18:43, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * As User:LindsayH pointed out, this thread is not about foreign palindromes. That issue has already been discussed and concluded. WP:DROP THE STICK. Meters (talk) 18:54, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * In fact (alternative?) no consensus has been reached, my "final arguments" on 31.10. have been unanswered. Risto hot sir (talk) 21:10, 13 February 2017 (UTC) Someone tried to add French palindromes. Can't You see that about half of the English words are based of French language. I admire English, but Your palindromes are lousy compared to many other languages. Risto hot sir (talk) 01:09, 14 February 2017 (UTC) "There is a world elsewhere" (William Shakespeare). Risto hot sir (talk) 22:10, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Added votes in brackets to clarify what was going on here and who was just repeating themselves or talking about something else. — Llywelyn II   15:45, 26 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I've removed these as inappropriate, per comments in the next section. For reference, the count made by Llywelyn was 2 Longer (Meters, EricEnfermero), 1 for Weak longer (McGeddon), 3 for Shorter (Bill Cherowitzo, Risto hot sir, Böri), 1 Ambivalent (Lindsay). Note that Lindsay actually went on to say "The longer version is to be preferred". --McGeddon (talk) 21:05, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

I'll note that the shorter version is better and that's a decent consensus of editors even apart from the obnoxious one. For all of his rudeness, he's completely correct that confusion between a car and a cat makes no sense at all and turns the actual palindrome (linguistic oddity) into an nonsemantic/mathematical example of letter symmetry instead, along the lines of calling "Aaaa aa aaaa aa aaa" a palindrome because screams can be transcribed that way. (On the other hand, "lasagna hog" may not be a common expression but it is a perfectly straightforward one: a person who hogs the lasagna.)

That said, I won't edit the article or claim this consensus is binding until someone runs the numbers on which is actually the more version. We've just had anecdotes and biased sampling so far. If they're both about equally common, though, we should go with the one that's a better sentence on its own. — Llywelyn II   15:23, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Talk page formatting
Is it normally considered good practice to add wording (like shorter, longer, weak longer, ambivalent) next to user comments on a talk page? If so, is "cleanup of formatting" really the most helpful edit summary? EricEnfermero (Talk) 15:16, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * You shouldn't format it to make it appear as though others said something they didn't, but that's what the brackets are for. Yes, it absolutely clarifies the separate votes versus the people just repeating themselves or going off-topic. The cleanup of formatting is most of what actually occurred and, yes, clarifying the voting on each side of the issue is covered by that edit summary.


 * On the other hand, going completely off-topic like this isn't actually helpful and should be placed into a new section. [Fixed.] — Llywelyn II   15:23, 26 February 2017 (UTC)


 * You're right that I should make it even clearer where those comments came from, though. [Fixed.] — Llywelyn II   15:46, 26 February 2017 (UTC)


 * This is still very inappropriate WP:TALKO, as it looks like the editors stated these as their definitive !votes on the subject, when they're really one editor's attempt at a summary. (Particularly problematically, you've overlooked Lindsay's followup comment which explicitly says "The longer version is to be preferred on the grounds that:" and put them down as "ambivalent".) If you want to give your own subjective summary of other people's comments, that's fine, but you should post it as a summary in your own words - I'll go ahead and do that with attribution.
 * I've also restored the original comment threading. From the way you've refactored it (putting everything into a big diagonal line except for a single @-response), I think you've missed how WP:INDENTing works - the comments that didn't line up with the diagonal weren't mistakes, they were additional responses to the comment one level in. --McGeddon (talk) 21:04, 26 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Bundling up old talks threads into a single, subheaded new one is also a bit confusing. If an old conversation is being continued, the original conversation should stay where it is. I've removed the subheadings (which seemed meaningless) and put everything back at the top of the talk page. --McGeddon (talk) 21:19, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Non-English palindromes
section is very poor: only "saippuakauppias" is mentioned. I've tried to add more information of Finnish palindromes, but they've been removed. Finnish is the language that rules the palindrome-world. The books of Risto Rekola (Ikävää, väki? and Naaraan) include 15 000 palindromes (Finnish, English, German, Swedish, Dutch, Estonian etc.). "Naaraan" is at the moment the most popular in poetry at eKirjasto (library) in Finland. Finnish palindromes are acoustic palindromes as well, not only written (like "eye" in English).

I hope some native English speaker would write in Wikipedia about this, so well it would be accepted. Risto hot sir (talk) 12:47, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
 * This is the English Wikipedia. There are links to 62 other Wikipedias under "Languages" in the left pane. Many non-English palindromes have been removed here in the past.[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Palindrome&diff=207339960&oldid=207339212][//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Palindrome&diff=226249318&oldid=226246795][//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Palindrome&diff=226250985&oldid=226249318][//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Palindrome&diff=257311132&oldid=257310969][//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Palindrome&diff=690143450&oldid=690102452] There are some posts supporting such removals earlier on this talk page. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:17, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I've just removed the foreign examples of palindromic stories. There's no need ot mention jsut a few, and they were not even as long as the English example. Meters (talk) 16:45, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, Kierkegaard, Hesse and Tolstoi didn't write English, so learn Danish, German and Russian and go to local Wikipedia! The true fans of palindromes have the right to know the best palindrome books in the world! Foreign single examples are not so important. 84.248.53.209 (talk) 20:21, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Kierkegaard, Hesse and Tolstoi have been translated to English. Palindromes don't translate. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:56, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
 * The popular rock band Eppu Normaali sings only Finnish, so why does it have an article in English Wikipedia? And it has a lot of information of many writers who haven't been translated into English. So where's the logic? Could You tell me where a palindrome book has become the most popular in poetry? In fact, one might say, all non-palindromic poetry is unformed, because it's not symmetric! 84.248.53.209 (talk) 11:35, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Finnusertop asked for more text to non-English palindromes, and Anagram16 and me followed the suggestion. Meters removed the texts. If You look at the pageview statistics, You'll see that during the last 4-5 days the article has been read much more often than before (about 2000 a day). So people seem to be interested. The articles's name is Palindrome, not English palindrome. If You want to understand Your own language, You have to know something about other languages, too! "Saippuakivikauppias" and ancient palindromes are not enough. It's clear that only carefully chosen and popular palindromes can be shown in this article. Anagram16's examples are good. The Finnish palindrome "Tom ohitti homot" ("Tom passed the gays") is about the best known Finn, Tom of Finland. There are one billion English speakers, so can You show me a decent neverending English palindrome like "Anna ajatella, talleta ja anna ajatella, talleta ja anna...". You should not think that if there's much fog on the Channel, Europe is isolated! --Risto hot sir (talk) 10:36, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I think that in the article named Palindrome can be and should be examples from different languages. If native English editors do not want anything that is not originally written in English, let us turn the section into another article Non-English palindromes. There was lately a similar discussion about alexandrine (rewritten by Phil wink, who is an experienced author) that led to creating new articles about French, Polish and Czech alexandrines. As there is category Palindromes, a new article would fit in well. (Anagram16 (talk) 11:21, 2 October 2016 (UTC))
 * Where exactly did User:Finnusertop ask "for more text to non-English palindromes" in this article? Risto hot sir discussed the issue with him or her here [] but that does not appear to a request for more non-English examples, but rather merely a comment that limited Finnish examples have been tolerated in this article. Even if there were a definite request for more foreign language content elsewhere, a conversation between Risto hot sir and another editor does not supersede consensus on this article. Foreign language examples have repeatedly been removed from this article, by multiple editors. It appears there is consensus that detailed foreign language material is not appropriate for this article. Meters (talk) 18:12, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
 * What I did say was that could make any improvements he sees fit to the section in this article. I also said I agreed that the section could mention a few Finnish palindromists by name (provided that it's reliably sourced). And, as noted above, that the section has previously incorporated foreign-language quotations. In addition to that (which, I agree, does not superseded consensus on this article, which I hope we can form right now) I'd like to say that a middle-ground approach here is preferable: this article is not about English-language palindromes but palindromes in general. On the other hand, this is the English Wikipedia, so it is only natural that the language has more weight than others. In any case, all information should be sourced to reliable third-party sources, and discussing whether original research material should stay or go is not very helpful. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:08, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
 * What does the mention of OR refer to? No-one has mentioned OR in this thread except you. Meters (talk) 19:44, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
 * It's OR to characterize the palindromes when no such characterizations are made in cited reliable sources. For instance, the article used to say that Finnish palindromes are phonemic. Translations of foreign-language palindromes into English is another OR issue and should be approached conservatively. I'd assume that reliable sources give translations for some of the most noteworthy foreign-languge ones, and if so, we don't need to come up with our own. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:03, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Let's compare the article Palindrome to another international subject: football. Football is still loved in England - thanks to foreign players. Football is an English innovation, palindrome not. Following the logic of article Palindrome, only year 1966 would be notable. In the end there would be a short chapter where would be mentioned that football is very popular in Latin America and Iceland. Is that kind of article OK? Why to hide information that many people want to read? Risto hot sir (talk) 07:37, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Your argument is incomprehensible. Meters (talk) 19:08, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Oh, really? So the new examples weren't good? Brexit-talk without answers! This time take a look on the famous "English" palindromes: "Adam" and "Eden" were words before there was English language. "Panama"-sentence was good 100 years ago. Elba is in Italy, etc. (Latin). In fact "Football" is an article in Wikipedia, "English football" another. So why not "Palindrome" and a new article "English palindrome"? Even the biggest city in English world, New York, is of Scandinavian origin (Jorvik). Longer than 4-word arguments, please!


 * And I challenged one billion English brains to form a neverending palindrome, but haven't seen that yet. Then we can forget the "longest palindrome sentence" in the world, 'cause the "Anna ajatella..." is possible to repeat 'till Doomsday. Risto hot sir (talk) 19:50, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
 * My four words were not an argument. They were simply a comment that your previous posting made no sense. Gibberish about about football and 1966 has nothing to do with whether this article should discuss Finnish palindromes. There appears to have been a consistent removal of foreign material form this article by multiple editors. I believe it is up to you to convince us that the material should be included. I'll ping all of the named accounts that have edited this article this year for input. Meters (talk) 20:46, 3 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Done. I believe I have notified every non-indeffed named account who has been active on this article or talk page since 1 January 2016. I skipped the IPs. My apologies if any of the IPs are long term editors with static IP numbers (none of the ones I checked were). Meters (talk) 21:23, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
 * My opinion is that in the article named just Palindrome should be examples from different languages, and may be different alphabets (Hebrew, Greek, Russian, Armenian and Georgian), not many - one example from a language will be enough - because Wikipedia is World Encyclopaedia more than any other encyclopaedia printed on paper. In the Wiktionary no one questions placing words from any language, even when it is a historical or artificial language. One thing more, in English Wikipedia should be examples from all the British languages, I mean in the first place Welsh. (Anagram16 (talk) 21:20, 3 October 2016 (UTC))
 * I agree! English is a new language having huge amount of words from Latin, Celtic and German languages, French... Even the Royal Family's name was Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha untill 1915. You have to know Your roots! Like written before, 100 000 palindromes can be formed in Finnish, so it's impossible to find the best ones out of lists. One example is not enough, I think, but every chosen palindrome must be argued well: why just this one should be in the article. And I've noticed that all the changes can be seen in a minute at least in the Spanish Wikipedia. Risto hot sir (talk) 08:09, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * This is the English language wiki. Mentioning that palindromes exist in other languages is important, but for examples, go to that language's wiki. We dont want to flood the english language palindrome page with hundreds of examples from dozens of languages (where would we draw the line?) Masterhatch (talk) 05:36, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
 * At notable, well-sourced examples, just like in every other article in the encyclopedia? — Llywelyn II   15:38, 26 February 2017 (UTC)


 * The Spanish Palindromo is in my opinion the best one: many (but not too many) examples of other languages after the Spanish ones. One hundred might be enough. Only the best ones would be chosen, those that make people think or laugh (or both) like Alivaltiosihteeri's "Syy hyökätä: köyhyys" ("Reason to attack: poverty"). And yesterday the Spanish article was more visited than the English one, probably the first time. Risto hot sir (talk) 09:01, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The Finnish example seems worth mentioning for being "world's longest palindromic word in everyday use", and a short, sourced section on non-English palindromes would be useful (perhaps mentioning any languages where palindromes are particularly common or rare compared to English), but a hundred examples would be far too many. --McGeddon (talk) 09:12, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
 * If the non-English palindromes would be in the end nobody is forced to read them, but the people interested in linguistics could have a chance to study them. Going to other languages' wiki? - they are seldom translated to English. Risto hot sir (talk) 11:58, 8 October 2016 (UTC)


 * They grind diamonds symmetric, don't they? So why not to grind words and sentences to shining or crazy diamonds? The best ones in different languages should be presented, like this Alivaltiosihteeri's masterpiece: "Aivot avaavat ovia" ("Brains open doors"). Isn't that aphoristic poetry! Risto hot sir (talk) 19:54, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * No comments? Take a look at the Danish article! There You can find foreign examples - but only one per language. Risto hot sir (talk) 17:33, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The Danish article lists foreign examples because you put them there earlier today. Writing about significant foreign palindromes (such as the longest-single-word Finnish one) seems the best approach to take here - I can't see that it would add much to list a couple of other arbitrary languages that also have palindromes. Are there any particuarly unusual palindromes in other languages? Or any foreign palindromes that were used in significant ways? --McGeddon (talk) 22:10, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank You for making this article better! I tried the same in the Danish article, 'cause there were a couple of examples of other languages; I just added some more. You must admit that those palindromes are much better than the English ones. It's interesting that there are palindromes that include only consonants ("Krk", "vrv") and never-ending palindromes in Finnish. --Risto hot sir (talk) 10:29, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't know if you're planning this to be a real RfC, or just a chat among the in-crowd, but in mine opinion there is no fault in including one or two foreign non-English palindromes (that's one or two total, not per language), it's a form of further information; anything further, however, doesn't belong here, as this article (on the English WP) can be assumed to be about palindromes in this language. Happy days, LindsayHello 17:48, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
 * No, it's not a formal RFC. I'm hoping to see a general consensus on whether the repeated removal of extensive discussions of non-English palindromes is appropriate. Multiple editors have removed such material but an SPA is still arguing to include it. The discussion to date seems to support the removals. There is also some support for minor additions in other languages. I don't see any point in giving examples of palindromes in other languages (incomprehensible to most readers) unless there is something notable about them. The long Finnish example is notable, and is still in the article. There are about 7000 languages, about half with a written form. We don't want examples for all of them. Note that Finnish (being pushed by the SPA) isn't even on the list of top 100 languages List of languages by number of native speakers. It would be interesting to note if there are written languages in which it is impossible to create meaningful palindromes. Meters (talk) 18:46, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
 * In that case, my contribution to consensus is, No, it is not inappropriate for extensive material/discussion/examples of non-English palindromes to be removed. And, once it has been removed, it is inappropriate for it to be replaced without a clear consensus that its presence is required.  My reading of this talk page discussion does not come close to giving that consensus. Happy days, LindsayHello 10:16, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * These are my final arguments:
 * - The Spanish and French articles include many examples of other languages. Are English speaking people less interested in those, although the words in English are mostly German and French origin?
 * - In the United States people might to know their roots better, including languages their grandparents spoke. I see many cities that are named after places behind the Atlantic ocean: New York (Ny Jorvik), New Orleans, Memphis, Bismarck, Harlem, St. Louis etc.
 * - Finnish is the world champion in palindromes. I've created and collected 50 000 of these to my Excel, and 2/3 are Finnish. It's interesting that in Estonian, the closest language to Finnish, palindromes are very hard to make.
 * - The phonemic aspect should be explained much better. "Madam", "did" and "Bob" are palindromes spoken, too, but most English ones not. "Do geese see God?" is pronounced something like this: "Duu giis sii Gad?". The unphonemic writing took place in England after the battle of Hastings (under French influence). Risto hot sir (talk) 09:01, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Continuing the conversation above, Meters is completely wrong and Risto Hot Sir was completely right. The article should include (sourced & notable) foreign palindromes. No edit warring should take place; 100+ foreign examples is clearly ludicrously ; but consensus and discussion really have nothing to do with whether the topic should be banned. The of the article is "Palindrome" and not "English palindromes". Of course foreign palindromes are within that scope, provided they are well sourced & sufficiently notable. — Llywelyn II   15:23, 26 February 2017 (UTC)


 * The axioms of "include all notable foreign palindromes" and "100+ is clearly ludicrous" quickly collide, though. There are lots of languages out there, and many will have a few famous palindromes which we can confirm with local sources. Even listing one per language would overwhelm the reader. It seems more useful to write a paragraph or two about foreign palindromes (focusing on any particularly interesting cases - languages where they are common, languages where they are impossible, languages where a palindrome is very prominent in society for some reason, languages that lend themselves to odd patterns), than to give a flat list of funny sentences. --McGeddon (talk) 21:28, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

References/COI
The next problem are the references. Tried to add some Finnish (and one Swedish) palindromes, but they were removed. In my opinion no references are necessary: everyone can see that the word or sentence is a palindrome - and consider if it's a good one. On other languages' palindrome sites there aren't many references. Nobody knows who has invented that "saippuakauppias" is a palindrome, still it has to be on this site. Otherwise every word in Wikipedia should have a reference - and that would destroy the project! Risto hot sir (talk) 22:33, 1 March 2017 (UTC)


 * The Finnish and Swedish palindromes you added were removed because consensus is against including excessive lists of foreign-language examples.
 * If you are the Finnish author Risto Rekola (and you appear to have finally clarified that this is the case on your talk page) it's also inappropriate to cite your own book as a source as you did here. --McGeddon (talk) 08:31, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I didn't want to write sources at all, it was Your idea - and 4-5 palindromes is not an excessive list. Check the Danish, Estonian and Finnish sites, there are not too many foreign-language palindromes! Perhaps You should consultate Llywelyn. Risto hot sir (talk) 10:03, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Forgive my frustration, but how many times do you want to hear the same message? This is not the Danish, Estonian, or Finnish Wikipedia.  Nor is it Arabic, Japanese, nor Klingon.  We are writing the English Wikipedia, and thus we must respect and abide by the policies and practices of the English Wikipedia.  What happens on the Estonian site is irrelevant.  Worse than irrelevant, it is a distraction which you seem to have been caught by, .  That being said, what are those policies and practices?
 * References are required. Doesn't matter that your opinion is that they're not.  They are.
 * Your own book is likely not a good place for you to cite a reference.
 * Your definition of excessive is apparently not that of consensus; we will go with the latter, thank you.
 * I'm honestly trying to be nice here, and not allow the apparent necessity of repetition to bleed annoyance into my writing, so i apologise if my tone is not what you might expect; you have to understand, however, that when a long-term skilled user like gives you advice, it is best to take it on board and not continue to try and hammer your own way through.
 * I have not linked to the appropriate policies and guidelines, as i'm sure you know them by now. If you would like, i will be happy to do so. Happy days, LindsayHello 12:45, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Please read what Llywelyn wrote! Risto hot sir (talk) 12:54, 6 March 2017 (UTC) Don't be so egoistic! Those foreign sites include English palindromes, too. I just put 15 000 bytes palindromes of nature (Palindromeja luonnosta) to fi-Wikiquote, so it's funny to see how You quarrel whether "car" should be in a cat sentence. And You've removed good English palindromes - like the Simpsons' one - and kept those in which are foreign words (Panama, lasagna, Elba, Eden...). Risto hot sir (talk) 14:42, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Rise to vote, sir
Please don't drop "Rise to vote, sir" - it's an excellent one: all the words are English and that sentence could be heard in the Parlament! Risto hot sir (talk) 19:19, 2 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I cut it from the "famous palindromes" section as it does not appear to be a "famous palindrome", just one that was "featured in an episode of The Simpsons". --McGeddon (talk) 12:49, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
 * It's the most famous English palindrome in northern Europe, at least. Risto hot sir (talk) 18:58, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
 * If you've got a source to back up "the most famous English palindrome in northern Europe", by all means add it back, with that context. --McGeddon (talk) 20:33, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The Simpsons is a notable and wellknown animation all over the world, and it's palindrome is much better and more logic than the "lasagna hog". I thought this is an encyclopedia, not an "I feel like" -site. Risto hot sir (talk) 21:29, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

More Finnish palindromes
Meters deleted two Finnish palindromes. Obviously he/she has not read carefully what Llywelyn wrote. Now there were these ones: "Syy hyökätä, köyhyys" ("Reason to attack: poverty") and "Aivot avaavat ovia" ("Brains open doors"). Aren't they much better than the "lasagna hog"? These palindromes are not mine, and the references were there, too. So what's the problem? This article's name is Palindrome, not English palindrome - like there's Football and English football, two different sites. Risto hot sir (talk) 20:09, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
 * As I said in my edit summary, nothing particularly notable about these examples, and the issue of multiple Finnish examples has already been discussed on the talk page Meters (talk) 20:37, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I think You're not the one who can judge whether these are notable, because You were "completely wrong" - that can be read above. Llywelyn made clear, that good examples of foreign palindromes (with references) are welcome. Do You regard two Finnish palindromes as "multiple"? Risto hot sir (talk) 21:29, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Llywelyn has an opinion, just as I do, and just as you do, and just as all of the other editors who have commented on the talkpage do, and just as any editors who have added foreign palindromes to the article do, and just as all the editors who have removed foreign palindromes do. Llywelyn's opinion is no more binding that anyone else's. We edit by consensus. The foreign palindromes were removed from this article in 2015. When the issue was raised on the talk page many months later I informed every named account that had edited the article in the last year of the discussion. Several editors agreed that in general the foreign palindromes should stay out. There was certainly no consensus that they should go back in. There was some support for mentioning particularly notable foreign palindromes or palindromists, and the Guinness World Record longest commonly used palindromic (Finnish) word and several foreign palindromists (including at least 2 Finns) are still in the article. That is not carte blanche for you to start adding Finnish palindromes again, and it is not a reason for you to canvass another editor to add foreign palindromes as you did . If you have other foreign palindromes that you believe are particularly notable please suggest them on this talk page so other editors can evaluate them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meters (talk • contribs) 00:42, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
 * What a bullshit! Only the editors who have some kind of understanding about palindromes should participate. Palindromes are the most perfect forms of artistry of words. The rhymes only work at the right side, and alliteration at the left side. Llywelyn surely sees best  the whole picture. If You want to make a site of English palindromes only, it will be as short as icehockey in Brazil. Risto hot sir (talk) 02:08, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The phrase is "What bullshit!"; and it isn't especially polite, so please refrain. It is nonsense for you to say Only the editors who have some kind of understanding about palindromes should participate because that is not how this place works, as i suspect you know only too well.  Being an expert ~ and i note that you have written a book and are a palindromist (right word?) with a COI which you apparently decline to admit ~ does not give you (or anyone) special rights.  We edit by consensus; we discuss and eventually come to some agreement about the content, and that agreement stands until it is changed by further discussion.  There are occasions, certainly, when the views and, more particularly, the skills of an expert are required ~ i wouldn't want a beginner to write some of our mathematical articles, for example, though the views of non-experts are still to be taken into consideration.  Secondly, though it is merely your opinion, i disagree that Palindromes are the most perfect forms of artistry of words, as i find perfect artistry in other forms; in fact, in mine opinion, which is to be valued no more than yours, and neither has any place in our article, palindromes are a facile and rather less artistic form of wordplay. Finally, i think your last sentence illustrates the misapprehension you are labouring under:  We do not want to make a site of English palindromes only, we don't want to make a site of palindromes at all; this is an encyclopaedia, and as such is about the form, not a list of them. Happy days, LindsayHello 14:59, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry! Now I think I've written enough arguments and good examples. Maybe after 10 years You can understand the point. There are so many other subjects I want to concentrate in. We have a term "pilkunparittaja" ("comma pimp") - and no consensus can be found with bureaucrats at the moment. Risto hot sir (talk) 15:41, 7 March 2017 (UTC) "Aito idiotia" ("true idiotism"). Risto hot sir (talk) 20:38, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

The longest examples of a semordnilap
The article currently states that "the longest examples of a semordnilap contain eight letters". Well surely "semordnilap" is itself a semordnilap and that contains eleven letters. Also, according to Wiktionary, a semordnilap can be a phrase as well as a single word (just like palindromes) and undoubtedly much longer ones can be found. [World Wide Words offers "deliver no evil". [[User:Spinningspark|Spinning]]Spark 14:33, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Very true. The unsourced claim that the longest semordnilap is eight letters is clearly incorrect. I suggest removing any mention of the longest, pointing out that semordnilap is itself an example, and pointing out that, as with palindromes, sentences can be considered. Meters (talk) 18:05, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Transcription of Hebrew example palindrome
The example “(פרשנו רעבתן שבדבש נתבער ונשרף; perashnu: ra`avtan shebad'vash nitba`er venisraf)” seems to be transcribed inconsistently to me. I think a more exact transliteration is pārashnū (or perhaps: pĕrashnū?) ra&#x02BF;avtan shebādĕvash nitba&#x02BF;ēr vĕniśraf. Biblical Hebrew would be vocalized pārashnū, but that might have been reduced to pĕrashnū until 1924. I am not sure about vowel lengths in ra&#x02BF;avtan, but this looks more likely to me than the other possibility ra&#x02BF;avtān. The varying transcription of ש with ś or sh is correct: there are two pronunciation variants of this single letter (often marked as ׂש and ׁש).

Note in particular that mobile shva, which was sometimes transcribed with  and sometimes with <'>, should be transcribed consistently. The article states that the phrase was coined in 1924; by then, modern Hebrew pronunciation did not yet exist, so we should use a traditional transcription. (Anyway, if one would follow modern Hebrew pronunciation, the first word would rather be prashnu instead of perashnu.)

[Edit:] I am adding this to the Talk page instead of correcting it in the text because I am not sure about pārashnū / pĕrashnū and ra&#x02BF;avtan / ra&#x02BF;avtān. -- David N. Jansen (talk) 01:06, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

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Palindromit
Added the fact that it's easiest to create palindomes in Finnish language, but it was removed by Meters. One of the most popular sites in fi-Wikiquote is Suomenkielisiä palindromeja. It's also the longest. English people should know this. Can You find anything similar in other languages? Risto hot sir (talk) 21:37, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
 * You have not provided a source for the claim that it is easier to create palindromes in Finnish, that the Finnish site is the most popular, or that it is the longest. See WP:RS.
 * I don't see any reason that an English Wikipedia article on palindromes should contain anything about the popularity or length of a Finnish website even if this were reliably sourced. See WP:UNDUE.
 * If reliable sources can be found that state that Finnish is the easiest language to create palindromes in I wouldn't object to mentioning that. Without reliable sources that statement appears to be opinion or original research. See WP:OR. Meters (talk) 22:03, 31 August 2017 (UTC)


 * The popularity at fi-WQ is easy to prove. Just compare the number of visitors to other languages. The statistics can be found at Pxos's conversation site (link Luigi Pirandello). The length of Palindromi is about 277 000 bytes. Have You seen longer ones? Risto hot sir (talk) 22:31, 1 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Visitors per day (since 1.7.2015) at Wikiquotes's palindrome sites: fi 65, hu (relative language) 52, es 30, it 22, en 4, pl 4, pt 4, nl 2. And think about the amount of native speakers! Risto hot sir (talk) 09:26, 2 September 2017 (UTC)- It seems that all kinds of playing with words is easiest in Finnish (like spoonerisms: Sananmuunnoksia, 228 000 bytes, plus spoonerism names, 23 000, and spoonerisms for children, 13 000 bytes). Risto hot sir (talk) 10:27, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

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A phonemic English palindrome
"Net foo often" is a palindrome both written and spoken. "Foo" is pronounced "fuu", but in the middle of the sentence it doesn't disturb.--Risto hot sir (talk) 09:43, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Well,it's not phonemic, but "net: fog often" is.--Risto hot sir (talk) 14:56, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

You're on thin ice with 'often': Anything phonological will be highly variable w.r.t. accent / dialect -- in this case, whether the speaker says /ˈɒfən/ or /ˈɒftən/. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8800:7D80:159:9EB7:DFF:FE4D:B6D7 (talk) 02:07, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Diacritics?
‘Panamá’ has an acute accent above the final ‘a’; is that being intentionally or unintentionally ignored? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8800:7D80:159:9EB7:DFF:FE4D:B6D7 (talk) 02:02, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
 * It does not have a diacritic in English. This is English Wikipedia, and the palindrome is an English palindrome, and a very well-known one at that. There is a discussion of diacritics in Talk:List of palindromic places Meters (talk) 06:18, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

2d palindromes
Hi. This is a topic that I think should be added to the page, but I need to make sure others agree. The topic is 2D palindromes, which is a discussed topic in current academic papers (e.g.,, , and , just to name a few). Essentially these are palindromes that are in two dimensional form (square or rectangle) and they should be under the category of Types. There are even algorithms that are proven to be optimal that will detect such palindromes. What are your feelings about how I add this topic? Thanks.

WikipediaSara2 (talk) 20:20, 25 August 2018 (UTC)Signed: S


 * It was suggested in 2017 (the first time this editor attempted to add this material) that this user was attempting to quote her own article . I directly asked the question of whether she was one of the authors of one of the cited refs when she attempted to restore the material . but have received no answer.. Meters (talk) 01:53, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Bythe way, teh reference for the second ref (Geizhals, Sara H., and Dina Sokol) is not functional;


 * Sorry about the link. This right here is the direct, long link.
 * I'll pose the question again, since the only only who seems to want to reply is Meters. How am I supposed to gauge interest if no one responds?
 * I'd like to add the topic of 2d palindromes to the page about palindromes. This is a topic that is being investigated by my colleague, and I've found what she's showed me to be very interesting. It's definitely discussed in academic papers, including in my colleague's.
 * So can I add this topic to the page about palindromes? Thank you.


 * Hi. So I don't know what I'm supposed to do (I'm specifically questioning [User:Meters|Meters]]). There doesn't seem to be any response. So can I post the info? — Preceding unsigned comment added by WikipediaSara2 (talk • contribs) 19:48, 25 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I would venture a guess that the lack of response indicates that the topic is not very interesting to the editors who contribute to this page. This might be due to the fact that 2D palindromes are not really a type of palindrome, rather they are a generalization of the palindrome concept to higher dimensions. I think that a more receptive audience for this topic would be found at Pattern matching. --Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 20:33, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
 * You were supposed to answer the question about the possible COI. Two years later and  still not answered. SPA never made any edits not related to this, and no longer active. Meters (talk) 06:27, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Semordinlap
I have now twice removed an addition about semordinlaps because it seems to be nonsense and, if it isn't, it is worded in a very unclear way. "Semordinlap" is by no means "technically plural", it is merely a word formed from another, plural, word, so we appear to be saying something that doesn't make sense. In addition, the phrasing as is, is not supported by the cites given (both resolving to the same source, which i'm not certain is an RS, though i'm certainly open to correction on that matter). I'd invite the user who's added this paragraph to participate here, educate me, rather than or prior to putting it back in; happy days, LindsayHello 06:16, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree on both points. "Semordinlap" is not a plural, and I am rather dubious about the reliability of YourDictionary.com. Meters (talk) 07:31, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
 * At least you’ve cut to the crux of the matter, whereas before you were blaming sourcing. “A word formed from another, plural, word”... go get some fresh air, my friend. Rovingrobert (talk) 21:57, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
 * , that sounds derisory but, to be truthful, i'm not exactly sure what you mean. I take it, however, that you accept the unsuitability of the material i removed?  Since you don't address it?  Thanks; happy days, LindsayHello 14:03, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Silence
Is silence, ie a word of zero length, a palindrome? (Many consider it is because it reads the same backward and forward). 194.207.86.26 (talk) 21:25, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
 * No, it isn't a palindrome, it does not have zero length, and it does not read the same way backwards and forwards. Meters (talk) 02:58, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog
I once added this as a "semordnilap", but it was reverted with the helpful comment of "not this again"... can someone please explain to me why this does not qualify as a "semordnilap"? Thanks! Oh, and please "ping" me when responding so that I know to look here when a response has populated. Thanks again! Th78blue (They/Them/Theirs • talk) 20:39, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * It's rather arrogant of you to ask to be pinged when you didn't ask me (the person who undid you) about this on my talk page, and couldn't be bothered to ping me to this thread, don't you think? You quoted my edit summary so it's not as if you didn't know who undid you.
 * "Not this again" because we don't need more examples and I believe we have removed this exact same example before. We have had issues with editors trying to push their favorite examples into the article before, and this appears to be more of the same. And you might want to try reading the definition next time. Your example is a palindromic sentence, not a semordnilap. A semordnilap is a single word that spells a different word in reverse. Meters (talk) 21:37, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * My mistake, I see this example is included under sentences, where it belongs. No objection to keeping it there, since this has been stable for some time, but it is in no way a semordnilap. Meters (talk) 21:40, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Removed the Semordnilap subsection since it was incorrectly listed as a type of palindrome, which it is not. Meters (talk) 23:25, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * , for what it is worth, I meant no offense, and if you like palindromes (as I do as well), then I think we would get along fine in real life. The internet world is a dark and scary place, especially for "new" editors like me. By the way, can you explain to me what the difference is then between a semordnilap and a palindrome? I don't know why the "lasagna hog" example is not a semordnilap. At first I thought it was a palindrome, but then I thought it was a semordnilap because it is the same LETTERS forwards and backwards, but not the same meaning. Like the famous example of "A Man A Plan A Canal Panama" is both the same letters AND meaning both ways... Wait, now I am confusing myself even. Please be patient with me, I'm happy to learn from you. Th78blue (They/Them/Theirs • talk) 05:26, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Per the definition we were using (now removed) a semordnilap is a word which has a different meaning when the spelling is reversed, for example ohm and mho, or "pot" and "top". Even were we to allow sentences as semordnilaps (which some sources do) that is not a palindrome. A palindrome's letters read the same from either end. If the letters read the same from either direction then the meaning is the same from either direction, and it can't be a semordnilap. Meters (talk) 05:53, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I see now! Thanks for the lesson. Oh, and I truly meant no arrogance in my asking to be "ping'ed", I simply don't know though when most things are addressed without it! Is it generally considered rude to ask to be pinged? I greatly prefer being "pinged" to not being notified when there is a conversation going on that interests me. Like this conversation for instance, I had to remember to come back, or it could have been months and I may never have responded, because it is buried in a talk page (one of hundred that I edit). Thanks! Th78blue (They/Them/Theirs • talk) 20:50, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

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