Doc, note: I dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod.

February 27, 2015 2:34 PM

A short, interesting article on the palindromists of Bletchley Park. Via Mefi's own.
posted by Tsuga (30 comments total)

The pull qoute: "After meeting Alan Turing and his colleagues at Bletchley Park, Winston Churchill reportedly said to MI6's Stewart Menzies, 'I know I told you to leave no stone unturned to find the necessary staff, but I didn't mean you to take me so literally.'"
posted by ZenMasterThis at 2:39 PM on February 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

Now that's what I call a palindrome.

Here's one in French, probably better (since by Perec), but I can't read it.
posted by kenko at 2:52 PM on February 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas!
posted by Foosnark at 3:17 PM on February 27, 2015 [6 favorites]

T. Eliot, top bard, notes putrid tang emanating, is sad. I'd assign it a name: gnat dirt upset on drab pot-toilet.
posted by Violet Hour at 3:21 PM on February 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

Demand a homemade bed a memo had named.
posted by argybarg at 3:42 PM on February 27, 2015

race car

that's all I got
posted by leotrotsky at 3:45 PM on February 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

Stacy's super-aware pussycats.
posted by rifflesby at 3:51 PM on February 27, 2015 [4 favorites]

"Saippuakivikauppias," said Jack,
"A Finn palindrome, front-to-back!"
Said I, "That's a scary one,
Try my Hungarian:
Kár a kan papnak a rák."
posted by Wolfdog at 4:03 PM on February 27, 2015 [6 favorites]

Natasha! Naomi! Did I moan, "ah, Satan?"
posted by univac at 4:21 PM on February 27, 2015

Able I was 'ere I saw Elba?

A Man, a Plan, a Canal, Panama?
posted by Sphinx at 5:21 PM on February 27, 2015

Remarkable was I, ere I saw Elba, Kramer.
posted by jenkinsEar at 6:02 PM on February 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

One of the students at Huntington College excelled at palindromes, but his incessant wordplay annoyed the students at a rival college so much that they started tagging his car with graffiti expressing the wish that he would choke to death on his own words.

H.C. Nerd! Drown in word drench!

(Not a classic, but I wasted too much time figuring it out to just keep it to myself.)
posted by Ursula Hitler at 6:12 PM on February 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

Unremarkable was I, ere I saw Elba, Kramer, nu?
So regards Rat's Lib: regrets no more hero monster gerbil stars' drag Eros.
Degas, are we not drawn onward, we freer few, drawn onward to new eras aged?
Garret, I ogle. Enemy democrats party; trap star comedy men, eel goiter rag.
Sagas emit taxes, rat snot, or pastrami. I'm Arts, a proton star - sex at
times a gas.
Dr. Ana, Cataracts. Uranium enema smarts if fist rams, Amen! Emu in a
rust car at a canard.
T. Eliot, top bard, notes putrid tang emanating, is sad; I'd assign it a
name: gnat dirt upset on drab pot toilet.
posted by Obscure Reference at 6:16 PM on February 27, 2015

Doc, note: I dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod.

Go hang a salami. I'm a lasagna hog.
posted by Theophrastus Johnson at 6:17 PM on February 27, 2015 [4 favorites]

No, Mel Gibson is a casino's big lemon.
posted by Segundus at 7:03 PM on February 27, 2015

Madam, I'm Alan.

and just fyi, kenko's palindrome story is NSFW.
posted by Hume at 7:27 PM on February 27, 2015

"Do nine men interpret?" "Nine men," I nod.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:34 PM on February 27, 2015

I used to work on Connectix Virtual PC and all the major versions had palindromes for codenames, like "Dr. Awkward" and "Taco Cat".
posted by w0mbat at 8:42 PM on February 27, 2015 [2 favorites]

Sit on a potato pan, Otis.
posted by Kangaroo at 4:37 AM on February 28, 2015

Here's one in French, probably better (since by Perec), but I can't read it.

I can read it all right. I just cannot, at this stage, devote the rest of my life to producing an adequate English rendering of it.
posted by Wolof at 5:01 AM on February 28, 2015

Eva, can I stack Rod's sad-ass dork cats in a cave?
posted by rifflesby at 5:40 AM on February 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

Tone sin: I Mefi feminise not.

I'll get me coat.
posted by Segundus at 7:09 AM on February 28, 2015

Zenmasterthis: 'I know I told you to leave no stone unturned to find the necessary staff, but I didn't mean you to take me so literally.'"

What does this mean?
posted by mulligan at 10:00 AM on February 28, 2015

Was it a car or a cat I saw?
A dog! A panic in a pagoda.
posted by Fuzzypumper at 10:10 AM on February 28, 2015

Crib bickerer.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 10:39 AM on February 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm surprised that the article only mentions men. After all, many of the code breakers were women.
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:14 PM on February 28, 2015

Mulligan: I think it means that he considered the staff members as the types of people who crawled out from under a rock, so to speak.
posted by TreeHugger at 9:25 PM on February 28, 2015

Too-Ticky: I wrote the article. The only solid evidence is on Peter Hilton and JHC Whitehead, though Shaun Wiley wrote anagrams and crosswords, and Jack Good (who first told the world that Hilton wrote 'Doc, note...' once published a paper under the name K. Caj Doog as well as his own (why? Because he wanted to use the royal we and his editor said you needed two authors to do so.)

Joan Clarke may well have been in on it but there is no particular evidence pointing to that. I haven't seen that book you link to; will try to contact the author to see if they know anything about pdromes. Thanks!
posted by msalt at 2:35 AM on March 1, 2015 [3 favorites]

Able sir did a bad Idris Elba.
posted by NMcCoy at 10:11 AM on March 2, 2015 [1 favorite]

This article got picked up by The Guardian UK:
"Breaking the palindrome codes"
posted by msalt at 4:58 PM on March 23, 2015