Word "Forms" (1 of 4)

What are these matrices?

As the NPL explains, the word square is the prototypical word “form,” the type from which all other types come. (This next series borrows heavily from NPL’s own list of forms types, but with a little more explanation throughout.)

On the left is a pure word square (FORMER ORIOLE RICHES MOHAVE ELEVEN RESENT), on the upper right is a bigram word square (REARREST ARMATURE RETUNING STRENGTH), and on the bottom right are a pair of joined word squares (CLOMP LAMIA OMANI MINER PAIRS ARDEN IDAHO REHAB SNOBS). The use of Courier should help you read across and down as intended.

There are trigram-based as well as bigram-based approaches to word squares. Or variogram-based, where the number of letters used in one slot is unpredictable. There are forms that use vowelless or consonantless versions of words or phrases.

These little flourishes can be added to any word form, really, and I’ve seen them added to traditional crossword grids as well. But because the square is the simplest of forms, it tends to get the special sauce more often to liven it up.

“Progressive” and “sequential” squares are special types that can only exist as word squares—and smaller ones, on the whole. Look along the diagonal up-and-to-the-right axis at the grid below:

As you can see, it “progresses” with each line: the last three letters in ICED become the first three in CEDE, then CEDE does the same to EDEN and EDEN to DENY. In the set of sequential squares below, the word “EASY” moves from top to bottom and left to right:

The next simplest form is the rectangle:

Of course, this one has to be a double form, since a rectangle that’s not a square doesn’t have equal-length entries going across and down. The same is true for the rhomboid, because you read its entries across and down, never diagonally. (If you read them diagonally, it’d just be a sort of italic-looking word square.)

Triangular shapes include the pyramid, which is close to an equilateral triangle, definitely at least an isosceles. It comes in “regular”:

And inverted:

A “truncated” pyramid is slightly broader, with its shortest across line two letters long instead of one. Then there’s the half-square, roughly equivalent to a right triangle. Below are the four variant shapes it can take (read across and down):

More tomorrow!