identifying houseboats

Jump to: proper houseboats | semi-houseboats | pseudo-houseboats | not houseboats | final notes

tl;dr:

proper houseboats (two "reversible" words without spaces or punctuation)

houseboat / boathouse; bookcase / casebook; sellout / outsell

semi-houseboats (two "reversible" words or phrases)

wishing well / well-wishing; chocolate milk / milk chocolate; overdo / do-over

pseudo-houseboats ("honorable mentions")

ride-along / a long ride; catacomb / comb a cat

not houseboats (not generally worth collecting)

starfish / fishstar*; dollhouse / housedoll*; dark chocolate / chocolate dark*

*Terms like "fishstar" "housedoll" and "chocolate dark" are not generally findable in dictionaries, encyclopedias, or daily speech, thus they are not counted as houseboat components.

proper houseboats

A proper houseboat will consist of a pair of compound words (or syllables which are also standalone words to the point of resembling compounds) which, when reversed, are both normal words in the same language, containing no spaces or hyphens or other punctuation. A proper houseboat is also a common enough word to be found in a modern major dictionary or encylopedia, including Wiktionary or Wikipedia.

Examples of proper houseboats are the following:

houseboat / boathouse

bookcase / casebook

sellout / outsell

setup / upset

overpass / Passover

Why these work: These pairs all consist of compound words which are common enough to appear in many dictionaries, and contain no spaces or hyphens or other punctuation. Note that capitalization is not a concern, nor is part of speech (noun, verb, adjective, etc.) important here, nor do they have to strictly be compound words, but should have syllables which appear to be standalone words.

The dictionary and encyclopedia entries may contain variations which include spaces or punctuation, but as long as there is also a variation which is without spaces and punctuation, it is valid. Of course, different people may prefer to consult different dictionaries and may use different dialects and may also take either a strict and structured approach or a loose and less structured approach to categorizing houseboats. This is about organizing your own collection - others may take a different approach.

semi-houseboats

There are a number of combinations which can be classified as semi-houseboats in that they have some but not all of the necessary features of a proper houseboat. They may contain spaces or punctuation in one of the pairs, for example. A semi-houseboat may only be a houseboat in a phonetic sense, or only in an orthographic sense - in other words, maybe it sounds like a houseboat when you say it out loud, or it looks like a houseboat when you only consider the spelling. They still must consist of common words (or terms) which can be found in major dictionaries and encyclopedias. Semi-houseboats can also include non-compound words broken into syllable pairs which, when reversed, spell out or sound like another common word. Semi-houseboats are still very worth documenting and collecting as they do often take time to stumble upon.

Semi-houseboat examples:

sugarcane / cane sugar

Both are common words (terms) that have single dictionary or encyclopedia entries (sugarcane, cane sugar) but the space in "cane sugar" means this is not a proper houseboat.

chocolate milk / milk chocolate

These are both common terms, but they both contain a space when written and thus cannot be considered a proper houseboat.

overdo / do-over

These are both common terms but the presence of a hyphen means it cannot be a proper houseboat.

wishing well / well-wishing

These are both common terms but the presence of spaces and hyphens prevents them from being classified as proper houseboats.

teapot / potty

This is an example of a houseboat where one of the elements is not a compound word ("pot|ty") but when you split and reverse the syllables, it sounds like one ("tea|pot"). This is also a phonetic houseboat, which sounds like a proper houseboat, but in its written form the components change their spelling ("tea" becomes "ty" - they sound similar enough when sounded out, but are not spelled the same).

pseudo-houseboats (or "honorable mentions")

The final category, also worth documenting and collecting, are pseudo-houseboats. These are words and phrases which could almost qualify as a semi-houseboat. Pseudo-houseboats are the "honorable mentions" of houseboat collecting as they may look or sound interesting, be "almost" reversible, and have taken time to think of, but unfortunately do not completely qualify as proper or semi houseboats. If you are in doubt as to whether something is a "pseudo" houseboat vs. a "not" houseboat, ask yourself, (1) does it have some element of the "reversible" quality of houseboats, and (2) is it worth an honorable mention in your collection due to some interesting quality or a nagging sense that it almost works, or is it just uninteresting nonsense?

Examples of pseudo-houseboats:

ride-along / a long ride

While "ride-along" can be found in Wiktionary and other dictionaries, a "a long ride" is not a word or term one might look up in a dictionary or find an encyclopedia entry for. However, it forms a comprehensible and fairly common phrase, for example "long ride" (without the "a") is listed as a collocation in Cambridge Dictionary and many of the listed examples include "a long ride." Therefore this may be counted as a pseudo-houseboat.

catacomb / comb a cat

While a "catacomb" is certainly an established concept, "comb a cat" is not a typical dictionary item. However, it is a coherent concept. Additionally, although this is a "reversible" phrase, it doesn't work exactly like most houseboats, which consist of two pieces: cat|acomb should reverse to acomb|cat; cata|comb would reverse to comb|cata. See the issue? What's happening here is we've actually separated it into three pieces: cat|a|comb, and then swapped "cat" and "comb" while leaving the "a" in the middle. Overall, this cannot qualify as a proper houseboat, but it can be considered as an honorable mention due to its coherent meaning and interesting qualities which make it closely resemble a houseboat.

not houseboats

Finally, we must draw a line somewhere and determine what are not houseboats. Something that is not a houseboat will consist of a pair of items in which one or both items are not generally considered to be "a thing" nor found in encyclopedias and dictionaries. Novel compound words which have been combined to create a brand name, an app name, a username, etc. do not qualify as houseboats.

Examples of not houseboats:

starfish / fishstar

While a starfish is definitely a thing by houseboat standards, a "fishstar" or "fish star" or "fish-star" is not really an established term findable in dictionaries, encyclopedias, or daily speech. One might argue that the constellation Pisces is a "fish star" but that will not qualify it as a houseboat. One may also discover that "fishstar" is a brand, an app, a username, etc., but this does not qualify it to be in a proper houseboat pair.

It may be noted that not-houseboats are very easy to think of. While trying to think of new houseboats for one's collection, one may think of seemingly endless not houseboats in the process, coming up with nonsense term after nonsense term. While some of these may be funny or interesting in their own way, they are not generally worth documenting as houseboats and may be disregarded from one's houseboat collection. If you find yourself unsure of whether something is a not-houseboat or a pseudo-houseboat, ask yourself: (1) does it have some level of the "reversible" quality of houseboats? and (2) is it really funny or interesting enough for an "honorable mention" in your collection?

final notes

Houseboat identification and collection is not an exact science, and opinions may differ as to how a particular pair ought to be categorized. Languages and concepts evolve and are not uniform worldwide, and dictionaries and encyclopedias are not flawless authorities, but simply one framework we can use to organize our collections. Analysis and critique of houseboats and their classification is of course part of the fun, but the keyword is fun.

my houseboat collection

Below is my collection of houseboats. I have tried to categorize them properly, but of course, many of them can be argued to be categorized differently. Enjoy!

propers

houseboat / boathouse

bookcase / casebook

songbird / birdsong

overpass / Passover

workhouse / housework

barside / sidebar

outlook / lookout

sellout / outsell

setup / upset

sleepover / oversleep

semis

pancake / cake pan

While "cakepan" appears on Wikitionary, I feel like "cake pan" with the space is much more common.

collect call / call collect

bait fish / fish bait

racing car / car racing

sugarcane / cane sugar

chocolate milk / milk chocolate

wishing well / well-wishing

overdo / do-over

teapot / potty

bypass / pass by

caveman / man cave

upbeat / beat-up

pseudos

ride-along / a long ride

As explained above, (a) "long ride" is a collcation, which we can find examples of in Cambridge Dictionary.

cartwheel / wheel cart

To me, "wheel cart" feels like a collocation... but I haven't had much luck finding evidence for this beyond my own imagination.

catacomb / comb a cat

Of course, "comb a cat" is not a common phrase... but I feel it deserves an honorable mention.