Longest and shortest palindrome

I would have gotten to “a myriad” and wondered what I could fit 10,000 of into a rowboat. Paper clips?

Wow. You guys are good.

“I did, did I?”

That’s all I’ve got.

This rings a bell, I think Stephen Fry tackled this very thing in one of his early newspaper columns and I seem to recall that was the winner. I must dig out “Paperweight” and see if I can find that chapter, he had some corkers I think.

Aha, here we are!

“It’s Ade, Cilla, Sue, Dame Vita, Edna, Nino, Emo! Come on in and eat, I’ve made us all iced asti”

“Rettebs, I flahd noces, eh? Ttu, but the second half is better”

Is there a word for phonetic palindromes, not specifically letter ones? I’ve only come with one, and it’s not even complete at that: kitchen/chicken (the “t” in “kitchen” is phonetically part of “ch”).

I’m trying to get this game going, but everyone I harangue seems to find it boring…

Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but I don’t see how kitchen/chicken is a palindrome. It can be a spoonerism, though. (However, “chicken neck itch” would more-or-less work as your phoentic palindrome, I think.)

The fact that there’s not a “longest palindrome” does not in any way imply that every string of letters can be included in a palindrome.

Simple proof by contradiction that there’s no longest palindrome: Assume that you have found the longest palindrome. Find the middle. Insert " I ", or “saw was” or any other simple palindromic phrase. You did not in fact have the longest palindrome.

Needless corrrection to my own most recent posting: the new genre of palindromes I’m willing to spread cost-free should be called “phonemic”, not “phonetic” palindromes.