Just a quick note I wanted to post after reading this oldie… once again, the shining light of reason has demolished a perfectly good bar bet. The question is phrased, “Can you name three English words that end in g or y? Here’s two to get you started - angry and hungry.” When spoken, this leads the poor sap to think that he’s looking for a -gry word. Classic misdirection. It’s a good thing that most saps aren’t Cecil, or we’d have to pay for our own drinks more often.
That reminds of a puzzle I read in a puzzle book once:
There are four English words that end with -dous. Two are good: “tremendous” and “stupendous”. Two are bad: “horrendous” and what?
Unfortunately, the puzzle book didn’t have the answer. I wondered about it for the next decade or so (literally) until “grep” and UNIX’s /usr/dict/words finally gave me the answer.
“dous” isn’t a word, in English anyway. There’s “douse”, but that doesn’t end in -dous. “Supercalifragiliticexpialodocious” is neither a real word, nor does it end with -dous. Congratualtions! “hazardous” is the correct answer.
Also, from that puzzle book: Punctuate the following sentence:
Jim where Bill had had had had had had had had had was right.
Four words Greg? I would say you need a bigger dictionary. At any rate, here are fifty or so englis DOUS words [excuse the duplicates and those with -ly -ness].