Puzzles and
wordplay in the
language
classroom
Edmund Dudley
A question…
ambigram
Why this topic?
Early memories of wordplay
NDNTOOCUW
WRSDORCSOS
BECALSBR
Wordplay as culture
 Really long words
megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért
 Eszperente
Kellemetes hely, melyben kedvedre ehetsz eleget,
ellenben e nevezetes helyen teljes keresetedet elverheted.
 Jokes about names
Maradoka Magamura
(maradok a magam ura)
Mikor Sodorszki
(mikor sodorsz ki?)
The wordplay in this talk
Word clouds
created at
www.wordle.net
Tongue twisters
Tres tristes tigres. (Spanish)
She sells sea shells by the sea shore.
Red lorry, yellow lorry
Three thin trees and three tall trees.
Tongue twister duels
Face your partner. Choose a tongue twister.
Take turns, saying it as fast as you can each time.
The loser is the first one to mess up.
1. Truly rural
2. Red lorry, yellow lorry
3. Please pay promptly
Create your own tongue twister
Name
Verb (t)
Adjective
Noun
Laura
Barbara
loves
buys
luscious
Brazilian
lemons
buttons
Puns
 Pun: the clever or humorous use of a word that has more
than one meaning, or of words that have different
meanings but sound the same.
Puns in jokes
Do you know any jokes about sodium?
Na
Do you want to hear a joke about Potassium?
K
I would make another Chemistry joke…
… but all the good ones Argon
habit
custom
tradition
Puns – My Blackberry’s not working
Puns on fruit: Can you spot five?
 blackberry
 juice
 black spots
 orange
 date
 apple
Rebuses
 Rebus: a combination of pictures and letters which
represent a word or phrase whose meaning has to be
guessed.
if
der
stand
this
A farmer’s love letter
Dingbats
 dingbat: a popular variety of rebus, often printed in
newspapers or magazines
Doctor Dolittle
Dingbats
Don’t look back
in anger
Dingbats
Jack-in-the-box
Dingbats
kiss and make up
Dingbats
Long time no see!
Dingbats
All for one and
one for all!
 http://www.quiz-zone.co.uk/
quizrounds/010527dingbats/questions.html
What do you notice about this text?
Noon rings out. A wasp, making an
ominous sound, a sound akin to a
klaxon or a tocsin, flits about.
Augustus, who has had a bad night,
sits up blinking and purblind. Oh
what was that word (is his thought)
that ran through my brain all night,
that idiotic word that, hard as I'd try to
pun it down, was always just an inch
or two out of my grasp - fowl or foul
or Vow or Voyal?
Lipogram
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear -"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'
Ozymandias – in lipogram form
I know a pilgrim from a distant land
Who said: Two vast and sawn-off limbs of quartz
Stand on an arid plain. Not far, in sand
Half sunk, I found a facial stump, drawn warts
And all; its curling lips of cold command
Show that its sculptor passions could portray
Which still outlast, stamp’d on unliving things,
A mocking hand that no constraint would sway:
And on its plinth this lordly boast is shown:
“Lo, I am Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, O Mighty, and bow down!”
‘Tis all that is intact. Around that crust
Of a colossal ruin, now windblown,
A sandstorm swirls and grinds it into dust.
(G. Adair)
Don’t say it!
A: Interview your partner. Ask any question you want. Try to
get her/him to say one of the following words:
yes
no
black
white
B: Answer your partner’s questions without using any of the
words above!
Lipogram dialogues: on the motorway
A: You are the driver. You don’t want to stop.
B: You are the passenger. You need to answer
a ‘call of nature’
Act out the conversation – no words
containing the letter E allowed!
Freedom through constraint?
Taboo
word to be
described
school
learn
teacher
student
taboo
words
Describe the word!
word to be
described
water
drink
liquid
glass
taboo
words
Freedom through constraint? Compulsory phrases
Writing a letter to a hotel
 Making a booking
 Asking for information about facilities
 Asking for directions
Include the phrases:
“a whisker from the beard of Charles Darwin”
and
“a warm glass of Sri Lankan mango juice ”
Compulsory phrases
Compulsory phrases
What do these sentences have in common?
 The quick brown fox jumps
over the lazy dog
 Brown jars prevented the
mixture from freezing too
quickly.
 Farmer _ac_
Jack realized that
big yellow _quilts
_ilts were
expensive
Pangram
What do you notice about these words and phrases?
civic
reviver
racecar
 A man, a plan, a canal – Panama!
 Was it a rat I saw?
 Sums are not set as a test on Erasmus
Finish the palindrome:
worm
Mr Owl ate my metal ______
even
Never odd or ______
mad
Dammit, I’m ______!
Palindrome
Find the connection
orchestra
carthorse
Anagram
Anagrams
Can you remember these?
Tom Marvolo Riddle =
I am Lord Voldemort
O, Draconian devil! =
Leonardo da Vinci
Oh, lame saint! =
The Mona Lisa
Favourite anagrams





Dormitory
Desperation
The Morse Code
Slot Machines
Eleven plus two
= Dirty Room
= A rope ends it
= Here Come Dots
= Cash Lost in 'em
= Twelve plus one
 To be, or not to be,
that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in
the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows
of outrageous fortune,
= In one of the Bard's
best-thought-of
tragedies, our
insistent hero, Hamlet,
queries on two fronts
about how life turns
rotten.
Spoonerisms
Rev. W. A.
Spooner (1844–
1930), Warden
of New College,
Oxford
Spoonerism: a mistake in which
you change around the first
sounds of two words by mistake
when saying them, often with a
humorous result
 "Three cheers for our queer old
dean! "
 "A well-boiled icicle"
 "You have hissed all my mystery
lectures. You have tasted a whole
worm. Please leave Oxford on the
next town drain."
Tom Swifties
A Tom Swifty is wordplay in which an adverb relates both
properly and punningly to a speech act:
"I'll have a martini," said Tom, drily.
"Who discovered radium?" asked Marie curiously.
"That's the last time I'll stick my arm in a lion's mouth," the
lion-tamer said off-handedly.
"Your Honour, you're crazy!" said Tom judgementally.
"The doctor had to remove my left ventricle," said Tom halfheartedly.
"Don't let me drown in Egypt!" pleaded Tom, deep in denial.
Who said it? And about what?
“the most serene and
civilized way of wasting
time that I, now nearing
80, have as yet
discovered.”
Colin Dexter
- Author of Inspector Morse
- Winner of national cryptic
crossword competitions
Cryptic crosswords
How do the clues work?
The Clue:
People bothered about language in Mass – those devoted
to the Virgin (11 letters)
The Solution: GRAMMARIANS
How you get the solution:
A word meaning mass (GRAM) and a word meaning
those devoted to the Virgin (MARIANS) are put together to
give you a word meaning people bothered about language
(GRAMMARIANS)
Clues with anagrams
Slipped a disc - it’s cruel (8 letters)
This indicates something is out of position – an anagram!
There are eight letters in the solution;
The solution means cruel
Can you solve it?
SADISTIC
Arranged robes like a judge (5 letters)
SOBER
Clues with anagrams
Revolutionary colours invisible for the bloody right-wing
politician (6,10)
SILVIO BERLUSCONI
Clues with double meanings
Fellow from Exeter, say, has footwear to put on (6,3)
OXFORD DON
Clues that require lateral thinking!
Make J-U-M-P in wonder (10 letters)
SPELLBOUND
Some celebrated clues
O (4,6)
_O_E - _E_T_R
LOVE LETTER
Amundsen’s forwarding address (4)
_U_H
MUSH
ABCDEFG…PQRSTUVWXYZ (5)
_A_E_
WATER (H2O)
Thank you!
Have fun with puzzles and wordplay!
legyened@yahoo.co.uk