Monday 25 March 2024

Mr. Owl ate my metal worm

OK, the title drew you in, as it was supposed to do, but what is it all about?

Try reading it backwards. It's a palindrome. A palindrome is a word or phrase that reads the same backwards as forwards. Some word examples are rotor, civic, level, radar, rotator, deified. Well known phrases include 'A man, a plan, a canal Panama', supposedly written about the Panama canal, and 'Madam, I'm Adam' which was probably not written in the Garden of Eden. Perhaps the most well known example, that most folk will have heard of is implausibly attributed to Napoleon, alluding to his exile on the isle of Elba, 'Able was I ere I saw Elba'.

A few of the better examples of whole sentence palindromes include, 'Was it a car or a cat I saw?', 'Do geese see God?', and the title of this blog entry, 'Mr Owl ate my metal worm.' (Punctuation, spaces and capital letters are usually ignored).

There have been whole novels written as palindromes. Satire: Veritas by David Stephens, and Dr Awkward & Olson in Oslo by Lawrence Levine. How much sense they make in either direction is for the reader to decide.




Barnaby Wilde's novels are designed to be read in one direction only, from front to back and he would like to assure you that they make perfect sense to folk with an open mind and a surreal sense of humour. 

Why not try 'I Keep Thinking It's Tuesday'? You can download it as an eBook from Amazon

FREE at https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0067YXRSU





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