The Swiss Data Massage Villa—Advertisement SpecGram Vol CLXVIII, No 1 Contents

EtymGeo™—Weird Little U.S. Towns, Part II

by The SpecGram Puzzle Elves™

Below are clues to the names of a number of cities. The name of each city is a homograph of an English word. The clues provided are vaguely etymological, and probably not sufficiently helpful. All your knowledge of geography will probably not be enough to provide any assistance. Our puzzles are hard. Life is hard. Get over it.

· E A R         Y O D ·
V E R B         N O U N
M O R P H O S Y N T A X
· T O N O G E N E S I S
C O D A         C A S E
T R E E         F L A P
P H I L O L O G I S T S
L I N G U I S T I C S ·
S T E M         E M I C
R E B U S     V E L U M
αdvαnced Move-αnαgrαms Solution

These towns, as with the last bunch, are all purportedly in the United States, though that may not be true. If true, you still probably haven’t heard of any of them, unless you grew up in one of them, in which case you have our sympathies.

???, Florida
Via Latin, from a Greek word meaning “all-healing”.
???, Georgia
Via a Latin word for “riddle,” from Greek ainissesthai, “to speak obscurely”
???, Hawaii
Via French, via Latin, comparable to Greek vocative “O, father!”
???, Idaho
From Latin, a misprint of the name of a Roman alleged by Pliny to have found it in Ethiopia
???, Illinois
From Latin, originally meaning “somewhat long”
???, Indiana
Via a Greek word meaning, among other things, “edge”, from PIE root *ak- “sharp”
???, Iowa
Via Middle French, via Latin, from a Greek word related to the Greek word for “knee”
???, Kansas
Via Old French, from Latin redemptionem, from Latin redimere, “to redeem”
???, Kentucky
Probably via the Low German frequentative of a word meaning “to look at,” from Proto-Germanic *augon-, from PIE *okw- “to see”

If you think you’ve figured out more than a couple of them, send your wild and unsubstantiated guesses to the editors of SpecGram. If we get your responses by September 15th, 2013, you could win a prize. The correct solution and winners, if any, will be announced in the October issue of Speculative Grammarian.

Speaking of winners, three Puzzlemeisters figured out last month’s αdvαnced Move-αnαgrαms—The Yì Līng puzzle:

Guy Tabachnick • Jeremy Martin • Eric Chen

These Puzzlemeisters will receive SpecGram magnets or postcards, along with a heaping helping of glory. For the glory-less, the solution to the puzzle is provided above.

The Swiss Data Massage Villa—Advertisement
SpecGram Vol CLXVIII, No 1 Contents