What is the shortest palindrome you can make using all 26 characters
in the English language? A palindrome is a sequence of words like "lid
off a daffodil" or "shallot ayatollahs" that uses the same letters
reading backwards as forwards. The words need not form a meaningful or
grammatical sentence.

gomvents-ga:

A sentence that uses all 26 letters of the English alphabet is called
a pangram. The pangram that is also a palindrome that appears on the
various websites created to honour pangrams, is:

"Oh, wet Alex, a jar, a fag! Up, disk, curve by! Man Oz, Iraq,
Arizona, my Bev? Ruck's id-pug, a far Ajax, elate? Who?"

This is referenced from:

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/List%20of%20common%20phrases%20that%20contain%20all%20letters%20of%20the%20alphabet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangram

http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words9.html

I have not been able to find a shorter pangrammatic palindrome than this one.

You may find this related topic of interest, as well:

IN QUEST OF A PANGRAM
http://wordways.com/inquest.htm


I hope this helps!

aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher



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palindrome "all letters" alphabet
://www.google.com/search?q=palindrome+%22all+letters%22+alphabet

palindrome pangram
://www.google.com/search?q=palindrome+pangram

Sorry. As both a mathie and a word puzzler, I have to disagree with this answer.

Check any decent dictionary: Any 1-letter word is a word. Imagine old
typesetters filling pages with lead type. "Say, Aloysius, please hand
me a W." In that case, the shortest possible palindrome that does not
have to make sense would be, "A B C D E F... W X Y Z Y X W... C B A"
That would put it at 51 letters.

Part of the problem is, what constitutes a word? Anything I find in
the dictionary? Which dictionary? A big multi-volume OED or a pocket
dictionary? What about things like "PDQ"?

Until these sorts of issues are sorted out, no definitive answer can
be given, but since the answer offered includes the constraint that
the sentence is grammatical (if not sensible), I bet it's possible to
do better.