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Topic: Special words for the english language (Read 2375 times) |
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Special words for the english language
« on: May 18th, 2003, 9:35pm » |
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1) What is the longest english word with only one vowel?
2) What word contains 3 pairs of consecutive letters?
EX:xxxxxAABBCCxxxxx
3) What words have no other words that rhyme with it?
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BNC
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #1 on: May 19th, 2003, 2:13am » |
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I'm not an English speaker, but I do seem to recall in either a movie or a PC game that the answer for (3) is orange
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How about supercalifragilisticexpialidociouspuzzler [Towr, 2007]
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ThudnBlunder
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #2 on: May 19th, 2003, 3:13am » |
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2) bookkeeper
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mistysakura
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #3 on: May 19th, 2003, 4:32am » |
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3. Silver, month
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Jamie
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #4 on: May 19th, 2003, 5:52am » |
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(1) Depends on whether or not Y is considered to be a vowel.
(3) Also chimney. BNC, was the computer game one of the Monkey Island series by any chance?
Another question:
(4) Which English word has the longest run of consecutive consonants (taking Y to be a consonant).
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James Fingas
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #5 on: May 19th, 2003, 6:44am » |
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For 1), I don't know, but I've always thought strengths had a lot of consonants in it...
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Lightboxes
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #6 on: May 19th, 2003, 8:34am » |
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gj everyone
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BNC
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #7 on: May 19th, 2003, 12:10pm » |
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Links to related sites: here, here, and here.
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How about supercalifragilisticexpialidociouspuzzler [Towr, 2007]
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Leo Broukhis
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #8 on: May 19th, 2003, 12:21pm » |
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on May 19th, 2003, 5:52am, Jamie wrote:(1) Depends on whether or not Y is considered to be a vowel.
(4) Which English word has the longest run of consecutive consonants (taking Y to be a consonant). |
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It is not syzygy, is it?
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maryl
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #9 on: May 19th, 2003, 12:59pm » |
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3. purple and I know there are at least a couple more; just can't think of them right now.
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mistysakura
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #10 on: May 20th, 2003, 4:59am » |
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Doesn't chimney rhyme with words like monkey? As usual, your non-native speaker is willing to show her faults.
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| « Last Edit: May 20th, 2003, 5:00am by mistysakura » |
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Chronos
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #11 on: May 20th, 2003, 3:46pm » |
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No, because you need to rhyme everything from the last stressed syllable to the end. Since both of those words are stressed on the first syllable, they don't rhyme. On the other hand, "monkey" and "funky" do rhyme, because both syllables match, and "about" and "without" also rhyme, because in those words, the stress is on the second syllable, so you don't need to match the first.
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Speaker
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #12 on: May 20th, 2003, 7:39pm » |
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For number 1
There is a guy that helps the accountants, he is the subbookkeeper.
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Jamie
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #13 on: May 21st, 2003, 6:48am » |
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To Leonid: No, syzygy, desipte being a really cool word, has only 6 consecutive consonants. The word I'm thinking of has 9.
It's probably also the answer to (1) if Y is assumed to be a consonant.
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Sir Col
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #14 on: May 22nd, 2003, 1:29am » |
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1) This question depends on how you interpret it. Does it mean, of all its letters, it contains only one vowel or only one particular vowel throughout? Taking the first interepretation: dystrophy, skylights, sprightly, strengths, stylishly and synchrony all contain 9 letters and only one vowel, but 'strengths' has to be the favourite as it doesn't contain the pseudo vowel, y. Interestingly, I believe that 'stengthlessness' is the longest word that fits the second interpretation of the problem.
2) There are no words in the English language that have 3 pairs of consecutive letters. In fact there are no words that have 2 pairs of consecutive letters.
4) Rhythms, polycrystalline and strychnine all have 7 consecutive consonants.
With regards to the non-rhyming words: purple and orange, how about... ?
I squirted my sister with a giant syringe
The entire contents of a pumpkin-sized orange.
Surprised when she started to bite, scratch and hair pull
Until I realised it had stained her skin purple!
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otter
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #15 on: May 22nd, 2003, 10:31am » |
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on May 22nd, 2003, 1:29am, Sir Col wrote:
2) There are no words in the English language that have 3 pairs of consecutive letters. In fact there are no words that have 2 pairs of consecutive letters.
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 Lucy, you go some 'splaining to do. Especially in light of earliers posts, which gave bookeeper and subbookkeeper as examples.
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towr
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #16 on: May 22nd, 2003, 10:56am » |
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in subbookkeeper you have bbuukk, but the alphabet goes abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
not abukcdefghijlmnopqrstvwxyz, so though double, they're not consecutive in the sense of following each other alphabetically..
'sideeffect' would work for two consecutive double letters, weren't it for the fact that it's actually 'side effect'..
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otter
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #17 on: May 22nd, 2003, 2:51pm » |
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on May 22nd, 2003, 10:56am, towr wrote:in subbookkeeper you have bbuukk, but the alphabet goes abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
not abukcdefghijlmnopqrstvwxyz, so though double, they're not consecutive in the sense of following each other alphabetically..
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OK. But based on previous replies, I think that many of us understood the question to mean "three consective double letters", not necessarily in alphabetical order.
Just my $0.02 worth.
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Sir Col
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #18 on: May 22nd, 2003, 3:45pm » |
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I found a longer word containing one single vowel and also fitting the criteria for the word containing the largest set of consecutive consonants: amblyrhynchus = a type of marine iguana.
Since saying that no words containing 2 pairs of consecutive letters exist, I've found the word, addeem (to award or adjudge). However, I'm pretty certain that no words containing 3 pairs of consecutive letters (alphabetically speaking) exists.
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Speaker
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #19 on: May 22nd, 2003, 8:56pm » |
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on May 22nd, 2003, 3:45pm, Sir Col wrote:| I found a longer word containing one single vowel and also fitting the criteria for the word containing the largest set of consecutive consonants: amblyrhynchus = a type of marine iguana. |
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Which is the one single vowel, the "A" or the "U"? But, by the power invested in me, I addeem it a bug-eyed scaly word anyway. 
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Sir Col
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #20 on: May 23rd, 2003, 4:48am » |
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Oops! It seems that I need to go back to pre-school for a lesson in the alphabet and/or counting. 
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Kozo Morimoto
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #21 on: May 24th, 2003, 5:41am » |
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Does lozenge rhyme with orange?
I've been told that the only word that rhyme with 'Australia' is 'failure'. No wonder our national anthem sucks...
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Chronos
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #22 on: May 25th, 2003, 10:37am » |
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I wouldn't count "syringe" or "lozenge" as rhyming with "orange", but I would count "door hinge". And "n+1th" rhymes with "month". As for purple,
Roses are red
Violets are purple
Sugar is sweet
And so is maple surple.
Every word in the English language has something that rhymes with it; some just require a little more creativity than others .
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Kozo Morimoto
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #23 on: May 25th, 2003, 6:46pm » |
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I couldn't find a listing for 'surple' in dictionary.com ...
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Gerd
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Re: Special words for the english language
« Reply #24 on: May 26th, 2003, 1:01am » |
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2) I know it's a word-construction:
If there is an opposition against the japanese 'Tenno', one could call it a 'Tenno-opposition'.
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