Re: Looking for a Rather Obscure English Word ...

madhavananda.BBSR@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> Hi! I'm the managing editor for a small publishing house. We are
> working on an article for which we are looking for an English synonym
> for the Orissan (as in from Orissa, India) word, "cauttisa". Cauttisa
> is a form of constrained writing (in this case a poem) something like
> the English alphabet song, only in a cauttisa each line begins with a
> successive letter of the alphabet ie: a, b, c, d, etc.
>
> If anyone has any idea, please let me know. Thanks.

The general term is "acrostic," which covers any poem or other
constrained writing in which the first letters of consecutive lines
(or sometimes consecutive words) spell something out. The 21-line
poem at the end of "Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll is an
acrostic on the name "Alice Pleasance Liddell."[1] I'd call one that
began with the letters of the alphabet in sequence either an
"alphabetic acrostic" or "an acrostic on the alphabet." I don't think
there's a single word that captures the entirety of what you describe,
but two isn't all that bad, right?
>
> PS: It's not a palindrome, such as:
>
> "damn mad"
>
> (read it right to left or left to right)

We do have some familiarity with such things here.

[1] It's worth quoting in full:

A boat, beneath a sunny sky
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July--

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear--

Long has paled that sunny sky;
Echoes fade and memories die;
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die;

Ever drifting down the stream--
Lingering in the golden gleam--
Life, what is it but a dream?

--
Big Ol' Bob Lieblich
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Looking for a Rather Obscure English Word ...
    ... >> successive letter of the alphabet ie: ... >constrained writing in which the first letters of consecutive lines ... >Eager eye and willing ear, ... >Dreaming as the summers die; ...
    (alt.usage.english)
  • Re: Google Translator treatment of Bulgarian and Macedonian
    ... letters are particularly good for calligraphy. ... can't read a Russian book for fun - it is already work. ... The Russian alphabet is more self-similar than the English ... The Serbian alphabet is more self-similar than the Croatian ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Kanji, Katakana, and Hiragana are different LANGUAGES.
    ... that no one has commented "these 'writing systems' are 'pictographic' ... The roman alphabet may memorialize ancient representations of concrete ... memorializing the Phoenician ancient representations of concrete objects. ... the meaning of some of the names of the Hebrew letters is the same ...
    (sci.lang.japan)
  • Re: new book on the spread of IE
    ... systems involve alphabets with multiples of 9 letters -- and the fact ... The Ionic alphabet had 24 letters, ... epigraphy lists them as "the very first Greek alphabet." ... The originals were gold disks worn on the shoulders by ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: new book on the spread of IE
    ... systems involve alphabets with multiples of 9 letters -- and the fact ... shows that the Canaanite script was _not_ used as numerals: ... The Ionic alphabet had 24 letters, ... language, and inflict your pro-active ignoring on us. ...
    (sci.lang)
Loading