Girl taking sodium backwards and forwards (4)
I believe the answer is:
anna
'girl' is the definition.
'sodium backwards and forwards' is the wordplay.
'sodium' becomes 'NA' (Na is the chemical symbol for sodium).
'backwards' says the letters should be written in reverse.
'and' says to put letters next to each other.
'forwards' becomes 'na' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'na' in reverse letter order is 'an'.
'an'+'na'='ANNA'
'taking' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for anna that I've seen before include "copper, once, in India" , "-- Karenina, Tolstoy novel" , "Former Indian coin, girl" , "Old Indian coin - girl's name" , "worth very little in India" .)