Puzzles and wordplay in the language classroom

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Puzzles and wordplay in the language classroom

• Edmund Dudley

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A question
ambigram
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Why this topic?
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Early memories of wordplay
NDNTOOCUW
WRSDORCSOS
CROSSWORDS
COUNTDOWN
BECALSBR
SCRABBLE
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Wordplay as culture

• Really long words
• Eszperente
• Jokes about names

megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért
Kellemetes hely, melyben kedvedre ehetsz eleget,
ellenben e nevezetes helyen teljes keresetedet
elverheted.
Mikor Sodorszki (mikor sodorsz ki?)
Maradoka Magamura (maradok a magam ura)
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The wordplay in this talk
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Word clouds
created at www.wordle.net
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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.
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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

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Create your own tongue twister

• Name Verb (t) Adjective Noun
• Laura loves luscious lemons
• Barbara buys Brazilian buttons

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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.

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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
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Puns My Blackberrys not working

• Puns on fruit Can you spot five?
• blackberry
• juice
• black spots
• orange
• date
• apple

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Rebuses

• Rebus a combination of pictures and letters
  which represent a word or phrase whose meaning
  has to be guessed.

if
der
stand
this
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A farmers love letter
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Dingbats

• dingbat a popular variety of rebus, often
  printed in newspapers or magazines

Doctor Dolittle
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Dingbats
Dont look back in anger
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Dingbats
Jack-in-the-box
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Dingbats
kiss and make up
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Dingbats
Long time no see!
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Dingbats
All for one and one for all!
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• http//www.quiz-zone.co.uk/ quizrounds/010527dingb
  ats/questions.html

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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
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• Ozymandias
• I met a traveller from an antique landWho said
  Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand 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 readWhich 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 kingsLook on my works, ye
  Mighty, and despair!"Nothing beside remains.
  Round the decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless
  and bareThe lone and level sands stretch far
  away.'

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• 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, stampd 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)
•  

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Dont say it!

• A Interview your partner. Ask any question you
  want. Try to get her/him to say one of the
  following words
• B Answer your partners questions without using
  any of the words above!

yes
no
black
white
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Lipogram dialogues on the motorway

• A You are the driver. You dont 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!

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Freedom through constraint? Taboo
word to be described
school
learn
teacher
student
taboo words
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Describe the word!
word to be described
water
drink
liquid
glass
taboo words
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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
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Compulsory phrases
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Compulsory phrases
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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_ realized that big yellow _ _ilts
  were expensive

Jack
quilts
Pangram
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What do you notice about these words and phrases?
reviver
racecar
civic

• 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
• Mr Owl ate my metal ______
• Never odd or ______
• Dammit, Im ______!

Palindrome
worm
even
mad
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Find the connection
orchestra
carthorse
Anagram
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Anagrams

• Can you remember these?
• Tom Marvolo Riddle
• I am Lord Voldemort
• O, Draconian devil!
• Leonardo da Vinci
• Oh, lame saint!
• The Mona Lisa

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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

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• In one of the Bard's best-thought-of
  tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on
  two fronts about how life turns rotten.

• To be, or not to be, that is the
  questionWhether 'tis nobler in the mind to
  sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous
  fortune,

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Spoonerisms

• 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." 

• Rev. W. A. Spooner (18441930), Warden of New
  College, Oxford

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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 half-heartedly.
• "Don't let me drown in Egypt!" pleaded Tom, deep
  in denial.

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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

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Cryptic crosswords
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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)

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Clues with anagrams

• Slipped a disc - its 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

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Clues with anagrams

• Revolutionary colours invisible for the bloody
  right-wing politician (6,10)
• SILVIO BERLUSCONI

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Clues with double meanings

• Fellow from Exeter, say, has footwear to put on
  (6,3)
• OXFORD DON

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Clues that require lateral thinking!

• Make J-U-M-P in wonder (10 letters)
• SPELLBOUND

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Some celebrated clues

• O (4,6)
• _O_E - _E_T_R
• LOVE LETTER
• Amundsens forwarding address (4)
• _U_H
• MUSH
• ABCDEFGPQRSTUVWXYZ (5)
• _A_E_
• WATER (H2O)

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Thank you!

• Have fun with puzzles and wordplay!

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