# Morse code palindrome puzzle **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [June 15, 2017, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morse-code-palindrome-puzzle/789017 "2017-06-15T06:52:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ferris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ferris/32/11573_2.png) [@Ferris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferris)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2017, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morse-code-palindrome-puzzle/789017/1 "2017-06-15T06:52:30Z")
Hi all, Posted a puzzle on a different message board, for which the answer was: “When you write each word out in Morse code, the dots and dashes look like a palindrome.” An example would be “tea”: - . . - After someone found the answer, I thought it would be cool to try and find the longest ‘morse palindrome’ (ignoring the spaces needed to differentiate letters and words), and offered ‘sandings’ as my best attempt. This was promptly beaten by a ten-letter word, but I reckon if anyone can improve on that with an actual phrase, they’d be found here. So, can you come up with anything longer? Any phrase would have to make at least some sense, but I reckon the bounds of admissibility are reasonably ‘stretchy’. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2017, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morse-code-palindrome-puzzle/789017/2 "2017-06-15T07:44:03Z")
These are fairly terrible: oh, pooh: hoop ho. spit timer–remit tips top moor stops; mom spots room pot. I totally cheated. I generated a list of words that consist totally of palindromic letters: ehikmoprstx. Then I filtered out those that weren’t either palindromes themselves (rotor) or didn’t have a matching reverse (step-pets). Then I came up with silly phrases from the rest.spot - tops pot - top moor - room pets - step spots - stops remit - timer sos - sos sis - sis sports - strops tit - tit hoop - pooh ports - strop eros - sore eke - eke per - rep pop - pop em - me spit - tips ho - oh pep - pep emit - time sees - sees mom - mom rotor - rotor pots - stop sexes - sexes pit - tip emir - rime peep - peep eh - he toot - toot poop - poop meet - teem keep - peek tot - tot pip - pip ere - ere ---
**Author:** ![Ferris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ferris/32/11573_2.png) [@Ferris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferris)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2017, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morse-code-palindrome-puzzle/789017/3 "2017-06-15T10:57:14Z")
**Dr Stranglove** , that’s still impressive. However, doesn’t your generated list not take into account that the non-palindromic letters can still have an ‘opposite’, like G and W, or F and L? So ‘fool’ works as a morse palindrome, but I don’t know if your list picks it up? Given the combinations that you can get from one letter with four dots and dashes in it, I think there’s good scope for more examples. What I mean is that D (–.) can be ‘opposite’ to EM or AT or ETT. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2017, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morse-code-palindrome-puzzle/789017/4 "2017-06-15T20:02:25Z")
I don’t think he was claiming that it did. It’s a quick-and-dirty way to get any answers at all, but it probably won’t get the best answers. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2017, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morse-code-palindrome-puzzle/789017/5 "2017-06-15T20:09:16Z")
That’s right. All of these will also be normal palindromes; any normal palindrome that consists of Morse-palindromic letters will also be a Morse-palindrome. So nothing too clever at all, but it was the easiest way to get any kind of answer. It’s not too hard to write a program that actually handles the Morse directly; I just didn’t spend the time yet. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2017, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morse-code-palindrome-puzzle/789017/6 "2017-06-17T20:46:34Z")
The best single word I can do:intransigence: …-.-.-…–…--…-.-.-… ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2017, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morse-code-palindrome-puzzle/789017/7 "2017-06-17T21:11:47Z")
And from a few minutes of playing around: Racist thinks slinkiest, reviled, shelterless fibber devalues stalest thermite. I am still enforcing palindromeness on word boundaries, but allow mixing between letters. ---
**Author:** ![Ferris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ferris/32/11573_2.png) [@Ferris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferris)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morse-code-palindrome-puzzle/789017/8 "2017-06-19T20:54:28Z")
I’m impressed - and the single word beats ‘wintertime’, which was the best that the other site could manage. Keen to hear of any other good ones (not necessarily as long), but you’ve easily proved my theory: SMBD has the smartest people. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morse-code-palindrome-puzzle/789017/9 "2017-06-19T22:17:31Z")
There are a lot of palindromes! But here are all the ones I found with length \>=10:antiquating (.–.-…–.-…-.–…-.–.) bottommost (-…---------------…-) incipience (…-.-.-…–…-.-.-…) initialled (…-…-…-.-…-…-…) interpreted (…-.-…-…–…-…-.-…) interstice (…-.-…-…-…-.-…) intransigence (…-.-.-…–…--…-.-.-…) predestinate (.–…-…-…-…-…–.) protectorate (.–…-.----.-.-.----.-…–.) researcher (.-…-.-.-.-…-.) shelterless (…-…-…-…-…) wintertime (.–…-.-…-.-…–.)Also, some words with length \>=11 that reverse to a different word:antipathies - shipping (.–.-…–…--… : …–…--…-.–.) intemperate - preempted (…-.-.–.--…-…–. : .–…-…–.--.-.-…) internecine - identical (…-.-…-.-…-.-…-… : …-…-.-…-.-…-.-…) intertwined - fracture (…-.-…-.-.–…-…-… : …-…-…–.-.-…-.-…) maintenance - urgently (–.-…-.-.-…–.-.-… : …-.-.–…-.-.-…-.–) secularized - funiculars (…-.-…-.-…-.-…–…-… : …-…–…-.-…-.-…-.-…) ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morse-code-palindrome-puzzle/789017/10 "2017-06-19T23:57:38Z")
Some honorable mentions while I’m at it: sissies (…) motto (----------) kart (-.-.-.-.-) arc (.-.-.-.-.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2017, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morse-code-palindrome-puzzle/789017/11 "2017-06-20T14:07:24Z")
Should we be measuring the words by their length in letters, or by their lengths in dots-and-dashes? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morse-code-palindrome-puzzle/789017/12 "2017-06-21T20:55:38Z")
I went with letter count. If we go with Morse length:[spoiler]intransigence is still in the lead, but in a 3-way tie: hairballs: …-…-.-…-.-…-… intransigence …-.-.-…–…--…-.-.-… shelterless: …-…-…-…-… The otherwise-unimpressive hairballs puts in a good showing. And I will now forever think of Morse code every time my cat is hacking up something. Perhaps she is communicating to me in hack duration.[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2017, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morse-code-palindrome-puzzle/789017/13 "2017-06-22T02:26:46Z")
Another fun question: what’s the most ambiguous Morse sequence?[spoiler]12 is the best I can do: -…-…: bah, base, bens, betes, brie, deli, dins, dites, dues, testes, tiers, tsetse Almost as good with 11: -…–…: babe, bans, bates, bath, begs, deans, death, digs, dimes, duns, nips[/spoiler]Also, the longest ambiguous Morse sequence:[spoiler]-…—.-…-----…-.-…-.-…-…-.–: biologically, theologically -.----.-.-…-…-…-.-…-.-…-…-.–: nonclerically, nonclinically Kinda boring, these, but not surprising.[/spoiler]