Syllabominoes

by Keith Slater & Trey Jones

Traditional Dominosa is a puzzle game that requires you to pair numbers corresponding to the faces of dominoes. You are presented with a rectangular grid of numbers. Each number must be paired with one of its vertical or horizontal neighbors. As in a set of dominoes, each numerical value pairs exactly once with each other numerical value. See the original “Domiphones and Dominasals” (SpecGram CLXXXV.1) and the more complicated “Domiphones II” (SpecGram CLXXXVI.2) for examples if you are unfamiliar with the genre.

Naturally, SpecGram’s version of the puzzle involves some linguistics-related twists. Rather than boring and obvious numerals, we use elements that linguists can enjoy and feel comfortable with. In this puzzle—dubbed Syllabominoes—there are six different groups of words. Before assigning the words into domino pairs, you must first identify the groups that they belong to. As the name of the puzzle implies, these groups are based on syllable structure.

Disclaimer. Syllabic analysis here is based on something we will modestly label Properly Standard American Dictionary English. Your idiosyllabification may vary, but you’ll have a much better chance of solving the puzzle if you can figure out ours.

If you can complete the puzzle, send your solution to the editors of SpecGram by May 15th, 2021, and you could win some SpecGram merch. The correct solutions and winners, if any, will be announced in the next issue of Speculative Grammarian.

Each of the puzzle­meisters below will receive some moderately desirable SpecGram merch:

Jonathan Della Santina • Erik Gamm • Eemil Pölönen • Vincent Fish

	Caraway Crossing
	SpecGram Vol CXC, No 2 Contents