Rebus

Rebus

A rebus (Latin: "by things") is a kind of word puzzle which uses pictures to represent words or parts of words; for example:: H + = "Hear", or "Here".

The term "rebus" also refers to the use of a pictogram to represent a syllabic sound. This adapts pictograms into phonograms. A precursor to the development of the alphabet, this process represents one of the most important developments of writing.

The writing of correspondence in rebus form became popular in the 18th century and continued into the 19th century. Lewis Carroll wrote the children he befriended picture-puzzle rebus letters, nonsense letters, and looking-glass letters, which had to be held in front of a mirror to be read. [http://www.lewiscarroll.org/centenary/niles.html] Rebus letters served either as a sort of code or simply as a pastime.

Rebuses and heraldry

Rebuses are used extensively in heraldry as a hint to the name of the owner of a coat of arms. This practice is known as "canting". For example, the arms of the Borough of Congleton in Cheshire contain a conger eel, a lion (in Latin, "leo") and a tun (another word for a barrel). This word sequence "conger leo tun" recalls the town's name.

The more popular rebuses contain simple English letters of the alphabet in different sizes, colors and other manipulations that often represent popular sayings and phrases.

Rebuses and game shows

Rebuses were central to the United States television game show "Concentration." Contestants had to solve a rebus, usually partially concealed, to win a game.

Lone Star Beer has rebus puzzles under the caps of its bottled beer, as does Rainier Beer, Ballantine, Mickey's and Lionshead.

The United Kingdom also had a game show which requires contestants to identify a rebus. The show, Catchphrase was a longstanding Saturday evening show, with Roy Walker as its most notable host.

Examples from history

*It is written that when Voltaire was the guest of Frederick the Great at Sanssouci Palace, they exchanged puzzle notes. Frederick sent over a page with two picture blocks on it: two hands below the letter "P", and then the number 100 below a picture of a handsaw, all followed by a question mark. Voltaire replied with: Ga!

Both messages were rebuses in the French language: "deux mains sous Pé, cent sous scie?" (= "demain souper, Sanssouci?", "supper tomorrow, Sanssouci?"); reply: "big G, small a!", "Gé grand, A petit!" (= "j'ai grand appétit!", "I am very hungry!").

*General Charles James Napier sent a one-word message after his conquest of the Sindh region, which could be construed as either a rebus or a bilingual pun: "Peccavi"— the Latin word for "I have sinned" = "I have Sindh".

*Similarly, though some 14 years later in India, James Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie telegraphed another one worder, 'Vovi' - the Latin word for "I vowed" = "I've Oudh" to indicate the annexation of the province, today known as Ayodhya.

Rebus Principle (Linguistics) is using the existing symbols, such as pictograms, purely for their sounds regardless of their meaning, to represent new words. Many ancient writing systems used Rebus principle to represent abstract words, which otherwise would be hard to be represented by pictograms. An example that illustrates the Rebus principle is the representation of the sentence “I can see you” by using the pictographs of “eye - can – sea – ewe”.

A rebus was used on the Continental Congress Patterns minted in 1776 and later on the "Fugio Cent", the first federal coin, minted in 1787. According to Walter Breen, Elisha Gaullaudet engraved the dies, using sketches of Benjamin Franklin. The obverse depicts a sundial with the terms "Fugio" and "Mind Your Business". Fugio means "I flee", the sundial means time and "mind your business" means "do your work". Therefore this rebus read "time flees so do your work".

Ancient Egypt

A famous rebus statue of Ramses II uses three hieroglyphs to compose his name: Horus (as Ra), for Ra; the child, mes; and the sedge plant-(stalk held in left hand), su; the name Ra-mes-su is then formed.

ee also

*I ♥ NY

External links

* [http://www.puzzlesurfer.com PuzzleSurfer.com] , a site with mostly rebus puzzles.
*Create your own Rebus at [http://www.myrebus.com myRebus.com] .
* [http://www.lashon.net/Puzzle Lashon.net] has Rebus puzzles in Hebrew.
*an example of using [http://www.zompist.com/yingzi/yingzi.htm chinese-like] characters to write English.
* [http://www.rebus-o-matic.com Rebus-o-Matic.com] , a french rebus generator based on phonetization, using a database of 500 images.
*twenty-six pages of [http://www.hssa.com.au/Documents/TriviaRebusPuzzlesAnswers.pdf rebus puzzles] (with answers)


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Look at other dictionaries:

  • rébus — rébus …   Dictionnaire des rimes

  • rébus — [ rebys ] n. m. • 1512; « mauvais jeu de mots » v. 1480; de la formule lat. de rebus quæ geruntur « au sujet des choses qui se passent », libelle qui comportait des dessins énigmatiques 1 ♦ Devinette graphique, Suite de dessins, de mots, de… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • Rebus — Rébus Le rébus est un jeu qui consiste à créer une suite de plusieurs dessins qui, une fois interprétés, donnent les syllabes devant permettre de découvrir une phrase ou un mot. Un rébus peut parfois aussi être attribué aux jeux de mots basés sur …   Wikipédia en Français

  • rebus — RÉBUS, rebusuri, s.n. Joc în care un cuvânt sau o frază sunt reprezentate printr o combinaţie de figuri, litere sau semne pe baza cărora urmează să găseşti cuvântul sau fraza dată. ♦ fig. Enigmă, şaradă. – Din fr. rébus, germ. Rebus. Trimis de… …   Dicționar Român

  • Rebus — Smn Bilderrätsel erw. obs. (18. Jh.) Entlehnung. Entlehnt aus frz. rébus (de Picarde) m., dieses aus l. (de) rēbus (quae geruntur) von Sachen, die sich ereignen , zu l. rēs f. Sache, Ding . So benannt nach scherzhaften Bilderrätseln von Studenten …   Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen sprache

  • REBUS — (от Radix tools Electronic Book Ubiquitous Solutions)  семейство программ для работы с электронными источниками информации в новом формате RBS. Разработчик  компания Radix Tools. Основой пакета является многоцелевая программа оболочка,… …   Википедия

  • rebus — REBUS. s. m. Jeu d esprit qui consiste en allusions. en équivoques, & qui exprime quelque chose par des mots & par des figures prises en un autre sens que celuy qui leur est naturel. Un rébus de Picardie. un vieux rébus. faire des rébus. Il se… …   Dictionnaire de l'Académie française

  • Rebus — (Bilderrätsel), besondere Art von Rätseln, bestehend aus Bildern von Gegenständen, deren Namen gleich oder ähnlich klingende Wörter oder Teile von solchen vertreten, so daß aus den Bildern und ihrer Zusammenstellung Begriffe und Sätze von völlig… …   Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon

  • rebus — (n.) c.1600, from L. rebus by means of objects, ablative plural of res thing, object. Perhaps principally from the phrase de rebus quæ geruntur of things which are going on, in reference to the satirical pieces composed by Picardy clerks at… …   Etymology dictionary

  • rebus — rébus m DEFINICIJA 1. zagonetka u kojoj se tekst (riječ, rečenica) koji treba odgonetati krije u kombinacijama slika, slova, brojeva i drugih znakova i simbola 2. pren. pojava koju je teško objasniti, ono što nije unaprijed jasno, ono što se mora …   Hrvatski jezični portal

  • rebus — [rē′bəs] n. [Fr rébus < L, abl. pl. of res, thing (see REAL1), lit., (meaning indicated) by things] a kind of puzzle consisting of pictures of objects, signs, letters, etc., the combination of whose names suggests words or phrases [a picture… …   English World dictionary

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