I hope “on my way out” was not for a long time, because I’m sure you are telling the truth about your collection and I have been checking back frequently to see some of the ones you’ve saved (or recalled).
Has anybody seen a word with doubled vowels that could be made into another word with different doubled ones? Better yet, aside from double-e and double-o words, can we get some samples of double-a, double-i and double-u words to play with?
Saab cars, Baal the idol/god
Hawaii, wii (far from what I think of as “common” – yet)
(I can’t think of a double-u — plenty of “w” though — word offhand)
Double-a to double-o (the second word admittedly an SDMB-specific reference):
Vaal (as in the Transvaal region)-Vool (as in Max the Vool, a name which derives from that poster’s typographical error when he got a high score in a public video game and attempted to enter his identity as Max the Cool)
Double-i words: skiing, radii
Double-u words: continuum, muumuu (the last has several variant spellings)
Good stuff, Sternvogel, and especially the Vool etymology. C and V are right there next to each other on the keyboard. Reminds me of somebody’s “secret code” of just using the letter next to the one you mean (with obvious word-wrap such as Q for P, A for L, Z for M or vice versa). Wonder how often such a code is used…
Okay, Annie-Xmas, I’ve waited long enough for somebody else to ask for an example usage for “sepped” (which I have yet to run across) and I even tried a web search for usage and found that most instances appear to be typos for “speed” or some other nonce-looking word.
Y’all have had most of them – and I don’t have a list written down, it’s just a mental exercise I do sometimes while driving or washing dishes or whatever.
Patter, petter (one who pets), pitter (raindrop sound), potter, putter
Tat tet (Asian New Year) tit tot tut
etc.
Another variant: words that will take more than one letter in a particular position, esp. when that letter can be either a vowel or a consonant:
Thanks! This last variant I’ve seen in crossword puzzles where there’s some money prize for picking the “correct” letters to finish the puzzle as compared with the “official” list. These have always bugged me enough to keep me from playing them.
I’ve had this idea to spring up while going through this exercise of inventing a definition (or more than one) for those missing words from lists that only lack the one word for a complete set.
An example:
strap, strep, strip, strop, strup – strup = to play a guitar and simultaneously remove one’s clothes
I swear that I was simulposting the “Strap, strep, strip, strop, strup” thing as you were posting! Swear! It just came to me as an example for my post. Weird.
Oh, you didn’t…I did all the implying myself! I was picturing something like a magic square. You know, where it’s a word in every direction. Like the “SATOR” thing.
Okay. If I didn’t have to wait five minutes for a search to help me locate it, I posted a thread on a card trick using the SATOR type of 5x5 square, except each row has both a double letter of its own, plus one letter each from the other three rows (it’s really a 4x5 rectangle).
The easiest for me to remember is:
G O O S E
B I B L E
A T L A S
T H I G H
If you want to spend a search locating that thread, have fun.
On the other hand, maybe we could work on a 3x3 word square. Could prove fun, too.
That’s exactly what I was thinking! Let’s see, you need a word that is another word backwards, and a word that’s a palindrome, right? Except, with a 3x3 square, the palindrome has to start and end with a vowel I think; unless the other two words do. Hmmmm…