Enigma is the monthly magazine of the National Puzzler's League in the US. On Sun, Apr 21, 2013 at 10:22 AM, Lee Sallows <Lee.Sal@inter.nl.net> wrote:
Interesting. Is it known who this Emmo W. is? I take it Enigma is the name of a publication (as well as a magine, of course).
Lee
At 03:41 PM 4/21/2013, you wrote:
Thank you for this.
The Wellman attribution was noted by O.V. Michaelsen in his article 'Best Anagrams and Antigrams' in the publication Word Ways (V23 #4, November 1990). Michaelsen states on page 218: "In the ultimate anagram, every word relates to the subject. A 'prime' example is Emmo W.'s April 1948 Enigma anagram ELEVEN + TWO = twelve + one." And on page 221: "ELEVEN + TWO = twelve + one [Emmo W. (Melvin O. Wellman, Lansing MI), Apr 1948]". Mike Keith had already found Michaelsen's attribution in a posting to alt.anagrams in January 2000.
For the record, here is how Dr. Matrix put it in Scientific American (January 1960, page 154): "The number 512 is 2 to the ninth power and 81 is 9 to the second power. But here's something even more remarkable. First, 11 plus 2 minus 1 is 12. Let me show you how this works out with letters." He moved to the blackboard and chalked on it the word ELEVEN. He added TWO to make ELEVEN-TWO, then he erased the letters of ONE, leaving ELEVTW. "Rearrange those six letters," he said, "and they spell TWELVE."
On Apr 21, 2013, at 4:27 AM, Lee Sallows <Lee.Sal@inter.nl.net> wrote:
Various websites accredit the anagram ELEVEN + TWO = TWELVE + ONE to one Melvin O. Wellman of Michigan, 1948, although I can find no exact reference.
I myself have been guilty of wrongly attributing it in print to Martin Gardner.
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