Fun With Numbers and Words During Palindrome Week

We’re in a very special time during the calendar year. Yes, it is Holy Week and that’s probably the most important thing to Christians, but it’s also Palindrome Week!

It’s really not all that complicated. It means that the dates of every day all this week thru Saturday will read the same date forward and backward.

Today’s date is 4-17-14. 4,1,7,1,4. Forward and backward it’s the same number and it works for every day this week. Actually it started last Thursday on the 10th. 4-10-14. So that’s a stretch of ten days where the date is a palindrome.

And we get to repeat the fun again next year in May. And every year thru 2019. Cool or what?

The word “palindrome” usually applies to words. It’s when a word reads the same both forward and backward. The words “mom” and “dad” are simple palindromes. So are the words “radar”, “kayak”, “level”, “boob”, “racecar”, “rotor”, “noon” and “rotator”. The names “Eve”, “Anna”, “Bob”, “Hannah” and “Otto” are palindromes.

Some sentences are palindromes. Some of the more famous palindrome sentences are:

• A man, a plan, a canal: Panama.
• Dog doo? Good God.
• Evil olive
• Gabe’s on a nosebag
• Go hang a salami, I’m a lasagna hog
• Lager sir is regal
• Madam, I’m Adam
• Mr. Owl ate my metal worm
• Murder for a jar of red rum
• My gym
• Never odd or even
• Niagara, O roar again
• Now I won
• Nurses run
• Was it a bat I saw
• Was it a car or a cat I saw
• Yo, banana boy