You're listening to Away With Words, the show about language, and how we use it.

I'm Grant Barrett. And I'm Martha Barnett, and I have a movie recommendation that's going to

appeal to every word nerd. It's a brand new movie. It's called The Polindromists, and it's a

documentary about the 2017 World Palendrome Championships. Of course, as you know, a

Palendrome is a word or phrase or sentence that reads the same forward and backward, like

Madam, I'm Adam, or No Lemons, No Melon, and the World Palendrome Championship is organized

and emceed by our friend, Will Schwartz, who's editor of the New York Times Crossword Puzzle,

and this film features some of the best Palendrome creators out there, like Mark Saltfeid, who's

the founder of The Polindromist magazine, and John A.G., whose author of such Palendromic books,

as Go Hang a Salami, I'm a lasagna hog, and so many dynamos. And you get to follow the top

competitors as they prepare for this contest, which takes place at the American Crossword Puzzle

Tournament. Of course it does. Of course it does. It's like nerd central. What's fun is that the

championship itself is a real nail-biter, because the top contestants have limited time to come up

with original Palendroms that adhere to any of several constraints, like on a particular

current events topic or on a particular movie, or maybe the first and last word of the Palendrome

have to be from a foreign language. And what's really fun is that they do this in front of a whole

audience, and the audience votes by holding up paddles that say wow on one side, which is a Palendrome

inn. Huh? On the other side, if the Palendrome doesn't make a lot of sense.

Ain't she great for another Palendrome? Nice.

You get instant response. Boy, you know you've really stuck up the room. If you get a lot of

honks in your direction. Yeah, and that happens sometimes, and it's painful, because you know,

a really good Palendrome is going to be something that makes sense and calls your images.

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