Our love for palindromes is on another level!

Backwards, forwards, whichever way you look at 'em, we love palindromes.

Hosted by Dr. Erica Brozovsky, Otherwords is a PBS web series on Storied that digs deep into this quintessential human trait of language and finds the fascinating, thought-provoking, and funny stories behind the words and sounds we take for granted. Incorporating the fields of biology, history, cultural studies, literature, and more, linguistics has something for everyone and offers a unique perspective on what it means to be human.

Otherwords is a production of Spotzen for PBS Digital Studios.

[Steveofthejungle]

One of the biggest disappointments in life is that the word palindrome isn’t a palindrome

[davidshi]

One of my favorites is by Greg Egan, about the Evergreen ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal:
“Zeus!” gulped Otto. “Deplug Suez!”

[Finnsel]

Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas!

Palindromes are a big part of Finnish linguistic culture thanks to how easy it is to make them and how straightforward the phonetics are. They've fallen out of fashion since the mid-2000s though, but they'll always be hip in my heart!

[ladylove]

"...and YOUR MOM!" sounds like fighting words

[Spacecadet]

My name is a palindrome and as a little kid I always had adults trying to explain palindromes to me as if I didn’t already know. I got so annoyed with it that I actually changed the way I spelled my name so it wouldn’t be a palindrome anymore…

[brickstudios]

„TENET“
That’s a neat reference then

[brianarbenz]

"Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new ERA?" I think of that palindrome whenever I shop for detergent.

[JRSchwarzenhammer]

"A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!"

[TheKosstImogen]

"Zeus, are we not drawn onward to new era? Suez!" is from a great book I read about a global insomnia pandemic, it's called Sleep Over by H.G. Bells and I will shamelessly take this opportunity to plug a good book 😅

[lizardmilk]

Feels like “palindrome” should be a palindrome. Maybe it should be called a palinilap.

[matthewgliatto]

There’s a city in Argentina called Neuquén. Fortunately, é is considered the same letter as e - just with an accent on top. So Neuquén still qualifies as a palindrome.

[Lucius]

Another question: Are Mac 'n' Oliver ever evil on camera?

[valloyola]

sit on a potato pan, otis was one of my favourite books to read growing up. it was the first book in the library that i rented more than one time

[EmjiAmsdaughter]

A well known Swedish palindrome is "Ni talar bra latin". It means "You speak good Latin".

[MichaelMahoneyTFIOV]

Flee to me remote elf! -lemony snicket

[hisham_hm]

"palindrome" should be the place where Michael, Sarah and all the other Palins race each other.

[Jan_Gavrill]

It's a missed opportunity to make the word palindrome a palindrome.

[goshdarnitman]

I listen to ABBA and my mom, so they have that going for them

[soup_rah]

The movie tenet makes so much more sense now

[nlain]

My favorite one is "able was I, ere I saw Elba" (supposed to be based on Napoleon's experience when he was exiled to Elba, his first exile)