What do you call those things like "2.54 C in an I"?

Question

I was thinking about those puzzles with some letters where you're supposed to figure out what the words are, and they're familiar sayings and stuff.

One that I wish I'd made up for around solstice-time has really made the rounds:

12 D D
11 P P
10 L -a- L
9 L D
8 M -a- M
7 D -a- S
6 G -a- L
5 G R
4 C B
3 F H
2 T D and a P in a P T

ha, ha. So, somehow something in my headbone came up with this one:

8 1/2 P in the S S

And was wondering, is this really legitimate? So I went on a search to check if there's such a thing as a half-planet, and stumbled on this:

formatting link

I almost wept.

Cheers! Rich

Kevin Stone · Accepted Answer

BrainBashers calls them Language Equations:  -- Kev

Mark Brader · Answer

The origin of these puzzles was a set of "linguistic equations" such as this one

4J. + 4Q. + 4K. = all the F.C.

which were invented by psychology professor Morgan Worthy and first appeared in a 1975 book of his, under the title "Formula Analysis Term".

Will Shortz then came up with the variant now commonly seen, such as:

29 = D. in F. in a L. Y.

where the left side is an single number and the equation format is no longer really necessary, but is used anyway. These were first published in Games magazine in the May-June 1981 issue under the title "Equation Analysis Test".

Many other people have now created such puzzles, and a British newspaper came up with the alternative name "ditloids". They took this name from a specific one:

1 = D.I.T.L.O.I.D.

which Shortz, however, would have written this way:

1 = D. in the L. of I.D.

The "rec.puzzles archive" site at rec-puzzles.org, where these details can be found, now uses "ditloids".

Rich Grise · Answer

Who the hexx is "Ivan Denisovich?"Does Will have a brother, Jack E.? ;-)Thanks,Rich

RST Engineering · Answer

That's because somebody posted one of these on a puzzles newsgroup:

1 = DITLOID

And somebody finally (after a considerable length of time) came up with the correct answer

One Day In THe LIfe of Ivan Desonavitch (sp?)

which is the title of an obscure Russian novel.

Jim

What do you call those things like "2.54 C in an I"?

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