It amazes me how many people need to write a function that checks if a word is a palindrome(same forwards as it is backwards). Here is a function that checks if a word or phrase is a palindrome.

The function allows for the user to ignore both the white space and casing.

Code:
''' <summary>
''' Checks if a word is the same forward as it is backwards
''' </summary>
''' <param name="value">The value to check.</param>
''' <param name="ignoreWhiteSpace">Determines if whitespace in the value should be ignored.</param>
''' <param name="ignoreCasing">Determines if the casing of the value should be ignored.</param>
''' <returns>Boolean</returns>
Private Function IsPalindrome(ByVal value As String, ByVal ignoreWhiteSpace As Boolean, ByVal ignoreCasing As Boolean) As Boolean
    Dim comparison As StringComparison = If(ignoreCasing, StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase, StringComparison.CurrentCulture)

    If ignoreWhiteSpace Then
        Return String.Equals(value.Replace(" ", String.Empty), String.Join("", value.Replace(" ", String.Empty).ToArray.Reverse), comparison)
    Else
        Return String.Equals(value, String.Join("", value.ToArray.Reverse), comparison)
    End If
End Function