What, you want me to walk all the way into the next room to check the OED? I use the internet, baby.
I checked my list of books on language and saw that I have Borgmann’s Language on Vacation, a terrifically fun book highly recommended for all word nuts.
Lessee, phrases or text that use only one vowel are called “univocalic”, while phrases or words that contain all five vowels are called “panvocalic”.
I propose that this particular criterion of a set of five (or six) words differing only in a single vowel be called quisquevocalic, “having each vowel”.
I was thinking of a term for the set of five words, each with a different vowel.
No it isn’t, sadly. Last year the editor, Jeremiah Farrell, rather abruptly announced the end of (or at least an indefinite hiatus for) the journal.
Well, pfui!
So do I. A couple of months ago I got a subscription to the online OED for $90 for one year. That reduced price is still being offered through the end of March 2021. I have a hardcopy set but I’m really enjoying the online edition.
I have subscriptions to so many bunches of things that they probably would startle me by how much I’m paying, but the OED… Nah, just wouldn’t get enough use.
defleppardism?
My initials are HM- I have no middle name.
It’s already a word and I could add a middle name beginning with an AEIO*U or M and still have my initials make a word.
* Hom, homa or haoma- a sacred plant of the Parsees and ancient Persians, supposedly. Not in all dictionaries.
Let me toss one of my own hobby horses into the mix - interchangeable consonants in word groups. For example - B and V. Thus:
A goVernor is elected in a guBernatorial election.
If you can moVe, then you are moBile.
G and W are another pair, but examples seem less common.
The person who Guards the premises is the Warden.
j
I went through Borgmann’s books, but he doesn’t have that category.
Transmutable-vowel words, perhaps.
Nobody likes “quisquevocalic” from post #8?
It was post #21, and I like it fine. I’ll log it in my list next to “quinquireme”.
Why not call them “abstemious sets” suggested Peter facetiously.
I access the online OED via the Chicago Public Library for no extra charge. Compared to that, my compact OED seemed positively medieval.
A garden was originally an enclosed space, much like a yard, but in any case something that was warded off from others.
Wily people are full of Guile; a mortGage is in some sense a Wager (and people who are enGaged have staked something on the future, you might say).
I’m now wondering if there’s a reason that looking through Gauze makes things appear Hazy.
And in the spirit of the OP and with the reassurance that the “e” variant means to meddle: Mall, Mell, Mill, Moll, Mull.
That’s a beaut!
And of course the French Gager = to bet/wager. Interestingly, it also means to pledge.
j
“Garden” (enclosed space) is also etymologically compatible with “warren” (enclosed space for rabbits).
Today’s (March 17, 2021) Pearls Before Swine strip is relevant.
Shades of “Betty Botter’s butter” from 1899! 