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Friday Fun Thread for March 31, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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S A T O R 

A R E P O 

T E N E T 

O P E R A 

R O T A S

This is an interesting palindrome from the first century. It is called the Sator Square. It found its way eventually to every European country, as well North Africa. Every word in this Palindrome is a common Latin word when read either left to right or right to left, with the exception of the backwards reading of opera which reads as arepo, having no other mention in Latin but may be construed as a proper name. Uniquely, this Palindrome is not just left to right and right to left, but up and down and down to up.

Its text means, when read as a book, “the farmer, Arepo, masters the wheel with effort”, or “Arepo the farmer holds to the work wheel”, or something along these lines. Speaking of lines, it may be read in the boustrophedon way, in alternative direction, like how a farmer plows his field, which is fitting and common in old Roman inscriptions, and this may render the meaning as “the sower sustains the works, the sower keeps the works”, though this fails as a meaning-based palindrome when read backwards. This is akin to “as you reap, so you sow”, which has a long-standing mythical and spiritual meaning for the Eleusinian Mysteries and other allegorical Roman stories and rituals, and later Christianity which synthesized many of these allegories.

Historians have debated what it means and its purpose, but historians are also dumb, and frequently ignore the forest by analyzing the trees. The fact that this is a four-way Palindrome, and that it has a normal and mundane meaning in Latin, and that it is applicable to the majority who worked in agriculture while having a vaguely moral message, is all the meaning necessary to explain its wide use and transference. Asking for Arepo to also hold meaning is asking too much, as he’s already holding the wheel.

An interesting discovery was made in the 20th century. A rearrangement of the square leads to an intersecting “cross” of the phrase Pater Noster, united by the N in the middle, with two alphas and two omegas as a remainder. This is certainly just an accidental fun additional Christological reading. There’s no evidence that our ancestors knew or conceived of this in previous centuries.

Because historians are dumb, they cannot accept that the four-way palindrome was popularized and utilized by virtue of being a really good four-way palindrome. They are looking for additional reason for no reason. Humans love patterns. Reading this palindrome square gives my mind a little intellectual orgasm every time I look at it. The surprise at the quad-directionality of the square every time I see it gives me a bit of pleasure. So it did to the ancients. No additional reason is required, and in fact an additional meaning is statistically improbable, bordering on impossible, for a cute symbol that is already packed with meaning and pattern. I’m reminded of listening and hearing Bach, and music theorists see all the wacky patterns he created in his works as kinds of musical puzzles, and they ask “what greater numerological meaning does it have?” It does not, as the puzzle is the meaning.

Oh, this takes me back. My great grandma was quite religious, but not very discerning in her tastes, so she subscribed to "Science and Religion", a magazine that was full of esoteric stuff like Sator square. I remember that I loved leafing through them every summer, even though that was more than a quarter century ago.

I wonder why no one has come up with a better four-way palindrome since then. Can someone ask GPT-4 to make one?

Also, the website of the National Puzzlers' League is delightfully Web 1.0.

GPT-4 gave me this after a few tries:

“Creating a 5x5 word square with proper meanings in English is quite challenging, and there aren't many known examples. However, I can provide you with a 5x5 Latin word square, similar to the Sator Square:

R E G I S

E V E N I

G I V E R

I N E R T

S I T E R

In this square, the words are:

REGIS (of a king)

EVENI (to come forth)

GIVER (the giver)

INERT (inactive)

SITER (they may be)

These words have proper meanings in Latin. Keep in mind that, like the Sator Square, the meanings may not form a coherent sentence, but the individual words have meanings.”

Pretty awesome that it parsed my meaning, said hey that’s hard, but here’s something in another language. This stuff is damn impressive.

This reminds me of "blank palindromes", a gag one Russian writer came up with. Blank verse looks like verse, but doesn't rhyme, so blank palindromes look like palindromes, but don't read the same when reversed. This is a blank word square.