BACK WORDS

Breaking through walls in the Antimaze and an April Foolery Gallery

With progress, as new things come along, we have to find new words for old
things. I remember my first tape recorder. If I wanted to buy that same machine
today, I'd have to ask the salesperson for a reel-to-reel tape recorder. The
word book sufficed for centuries, but when paperbacks came along, a new word,
hardcover book, was born.

These words, typically adjective-noun combinations, are called retronyms. How
many can you find in the following story?

``I drove my car, which has a manual transmission, down a dirt road and listened
to a day baseball game, played on natural turf, on my AM radio. Then I tuned in
a stage play, which had been prerecorded before a live audience.

``In the back was my road bike, a manual typewriter, a rotary phone, a cloth
diaper, an acoustic guitar, a still camera, a straight razor, and a fountain
pen. Later, at a sit-down dinner, I had free-range chicken, a cheese blintz, and
plain yogurt. I washed it down with a draft beer, some fresh-squeezed orange
juice, and a Coca-Cola Classic.''

Better retronyms are needed. What do you call a nonmicrowave oven? I call mine
the macrowave. Rollerblade is a trade name for in-line skates. Now we need an
updated word for traditional skates.

Can readers come up with words for nondigital tape cassette, non-flat-screen TV,
nonelectronic mail, and other retronyms? The solution to Scott Kim's Antimaze,
which appeared here last month, is above. The path from the square to the circle
passes only through walls and never through open spaces.

Nob Yoshigahara, the Japanese puzzle inventor and writer, recently showed me two
new creations. First, he arranged nine matchsticks into three triangles (top).
``Can you move only two matches and leave no triangles?'' he asked.

Second, he drew a plan for three fractions (at bottom), each with a one-digit
numerator and a two-digit denominator, which all together add up to one. The
challenge is to place the nine digits 1 through 9 in the only way that makes the
equation correct. I'll answer these two problems in June.

Let's wrap up this column with some puzzles appropriate to the month.

1. What runs fore to aft on one side of a ship and aft to fore on the other
side?

2. If nine thousand nine hundred and nine dollars is written as $9,909, how
should twelve thousand twelve hundred and twelve dollars be written?

3. In a deck of cards, two of the Jacks have two eyes and two of the Jacks have
one eye. How many eyes are on the four Jack cards?

4. You throw away the outside and cook the inside. Then you eat the outside and
throw away the inside. What did you eat?

5. How can you stand behind your father while he is standing behind you?

6. While Kellee was making coffee, her earring fell into the cup. Even though
the cup was full of coffee, the earring didn't get wet. How is this possible?

7. A man is found dead in the snow in a remote mountain area. There are no
tracks leading to or from his body. He didn't die of hunger, thirst, or cold.
The coroner ruled that he died partly because of the pack on his back. What was
in it?

8. Coincidentally, nearby was the body of a woman who had been killed by the
pack on her back. The coroner determined she had been walking alone and that no
one was near her when she died. What happened?

ANSWERS:

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The story has 23 retronyms.

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1. The name of the ship.

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2. $13,212

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3. Twelve. Each card has two Jack faces.

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4. An ear of corn.

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5. Stand back to back.

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6. The cup had dry instant coffee in it.

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7. An unopened parachute.

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8. She was killed by a pack of wolves.