~d a d elightful No ve mber 1995

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247

GRAPHING THE PROVERBS

LEONARD GORDON Tucson, Arizona

As my recent contributions to Word Ways show, I enjoy graphing. But, one day I got bored with long words which I would never use in writing or speech. Somehow, I thought of graphing proverbs. Here is a sample.

The reader is no doubt familiar with king and queen graphing (plac­ing the different letters of a word on a chessboard in such a way that one can trace out the word by king's move or queen's move in chess). My original plan was to use king graphing only. However, the words in many proverbs do not all connect. Sometimes words like OF or IS or WILL don't make it. For some cases, I mixed in a second (related) proverb. This worked sometime, but the pair often became too much for a king graph. So, I shifted to queen graphing. Finding these challeng­ing, I searched out longer proverbs, and now a new problem arose. I planned to present graphs as "decipher" puzzles but some are nearly impossible to decipher. So, I present them in a way that can be adapted to search-a-word puzzles.

I have a computer program for king graphing. A potential graph was first laid out in rough form with pencil and paper. The guts were then entered into the computer program letter by letter until I recognized that a king graph was or was not possible. If it was, I usually let the computer finish, but sometimes completed the picture using tiles on a checkerboard. If a king graph was not possible, I tried to extend the king graph nucleus to a queen graph, again using tiles on a checker­board. Often, all that was needed to complete a queen graph was an offset of one or two tiles; other times quite a bit of manipulation was needed. Occasionally a queen graph was not possible. For either type of graph, tiles were sometimes shifted to make the final form compact and/or symmetrical.

Some of these proverbs (or sayings or cliches) are not politically correct (a woman's place... ) today. Those of Irish origin are easily recognized by the pugnacious tone. The proverb about the crows is of Scottish ongln. Rooster-chicken analogies usually indicate a Spanish origin. Many proverbs appear in collections from several languages.

To illustrate the game, the following graphs may be read as "all that glitters is not gold", "big fish eat little fish" and "a graph a day keeps boredom away". The page preceding the graphs lists the proverbs to be searched for or taken as hints in deciphering. The Answers and Solu­tions keys each proverb on the list to the number accompanying its

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graph. There are 61 proverbs on the list which are to be located in 51 different graphs. King graphs are in general more difficult to decipher than queen graphs because the tightness allows more false leads. It is possible that some graphs may include unplanned proverbs.

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A limitation of both king graphs and queen graphs is that there can be no more than eight joins to a letter. With proverbs, that limit often occurs with the letter 0, caused by DO NOT and/or YOU. DO NOT can be replaced with DON'T but I have avoided all contractions in this article. Often this replacement is of no value because some word like TOMORROW also calls for the TO join. The proverb "do not take love for granted or you will lose it" became graphab1e when YOU was replaced with YE, as shown below. The proverb "they speak of my drinking, but never of my thirst" became queen graphab1e when OF was replaced with ABOUT.

I noticed that the letters in graph 309 are all on the same color sq uares of a checkerboard, allowing me to reform the graph to the one on the right below. This is related to making ordinary search-a-word

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puzzles. The best plan there is to make two separate rectangular cross­word arrays, con vert each to a diagonal array, and intermix by placing each on a separate color. Then add connecting words orthogonally as you can. King graphs are actually search-a-word graphs if one consid­ers each bigram to be a two-letter word.

001 A leopard can not change his spots,002 A man s tongue has often broken his nose 003 A shut mouth makes no enem1es ,004 A woman s place is at home

Absence r 006 Actions S] 007 After the 008 All that g 009 April sho

Bad news 011 Beggars (

012 Better sal 013 Beware 01 014 Birds of

Bread is 016 Death is 017 Do not bi 018 Do not bi 019 Every rn a

Explore e 021 F a milia rit 022 Good 1ud 023 Had you 024 He that \'I

He who s 026 Hitch you 027 Ill-gotten 028 Imitatl0n 029 It is easi

It takes 1

031 Leave no 032 Leave we 033 Look bef( 03/+ Love 1S t

Love mak 036 Make hay 037 Melons a t 038 Might is 039 Misery 3 (

No news OLd No palO, 01+2 One rottE 043 Politics n 04/+ Practice

Rabbits c 0[~6 ShoemakE 047 Strike wI OLf 8 The be s t 049 The earlJ

The earl j 051 The gra s 052 The pen 053 The wolf 054 Th e r e 1S

There is

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Ie located in 51 Absence makes the heart grow fonder ult to decipher 006 Actions speak louder than words

lse lead s. It is 007 After the game the king goes into the sack like the pawn IS. 008 All that glitters is not gold

009 April showers bring May flowers

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Bad news travels fast 011 Beggars cannot be choosers 012 Better safe than sorry 013 Beware of Greeks bearing gifts 014 Birds of a feather flock together

Bread is the staff of life 016 Death is the poor man f s physician 017 Do not bite the hand that feeds you 018 Do not bite off more than you can chew 019 E very man has his price

that there can Explore every avenue

that limit often 021 Familiarity breeds contempt

DO NOT can be 022 Good luck beats early rising in this article. 023 Had you not been among the crows you would not have been shot like TOMORROW 024 He that will enter Paradise must have a good key

for granted or He who sleeps with dogs wakes up with fleas

ed with YE, as 026 Hitch your wagon to a star

ut never of my 027 Ill-gotten gains never prosper :h ABOUT. 028 Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

029 It is easier said than done the same color It takes two to tango aph to the one 031 Leave no stone unturned search-a-word 032 Leave well enough alone

033 Look before you leap

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- 03/+ Love is blind Love makes the world go around

036 Make hay while the sun shines 037 Melons and women are difficult to judge 038 Might is right 039 Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows

No news is good news 041 No pain, no gain 01+2 One rotten apple spoils the barrel 043 Politics makes strange bedfellows 04/+ Practice makes perfect

Rabbits and lies multiply easily tangular cross­ OL.6 Shoemaker, stick to your last. 'mix by placin g 047 Strike while the iron is hot

Jrthogonally as Olt8 The best thin gs in life are free

if one consid- 049 The early bird gets the worm The early bird catches the worm

051 The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence 052 The pen is mightier than the sword 053 The wolf may lose his teeth, but never his nature 054 There is always an exception to the rule

There is no place like home

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056 There is no honor among thieves 057 There is no fool like an old fool 058 Too many cooks spoil the broth 059 Words are to be weighed , not counted 060 You cannot teach an old dog new tricks 061 You reap

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