I’d have to ask her permission first, or its another beating for me.
Could Annie have been perhaps thinking of “fanny”? Here in the states, it means ones’ backside. I believe in England it refers to the female pudenda.
Shaky Jake
No, I read that in one of Willard Espry’s 'Words
at Play" books. He is usually pretty reliable,
so I trust him.
Is there a 6 letter word that can be typed with
your right hand. There are a lot of 5 letter ones
(my favorite–hinky), but the only six letter ones
I could find use --in’ for --ing. Anyone know a
real one?
Espry is wrong. Cvnt is not a term for arse in Britain. Fanny is. That’s why we love it when you talk about fanny packs, falling on your fanny, ask if your fanny looks big in these jeans, etc. Remember, this is the country that created Benny Hill, so imagine how funny we find smutty language inconsistencies.
G. B. Shaw once made the observation that “fish” could be spelled: photi
The ph in PHone
the o in wOmen
and the ti from naTIon
It couldn’t. ti is only /S/ immediately before a vowel.
This has been your Boring Phonology session for the day.
Actually, I thought Shaw said “fish” could be spelled “ghoti”:
GH as in couGH
O as in wOmen; and
TI as in naTIon
I’ve also seen “Oh, Calcutta” translated into
the English “Oh, what an ass you have.” The
phase is actually an English-ization of the
French “Oh, quelle c*nt tu a.” So maybe I’m
mixing up French and British.
Another “four vowels in a row” word:
obsequious
And here’s another 9-letter single-syllable word:
straights
Not as in “dire,” but as in poker.
Another four-vowels-in-a-row word:
obsequious
And another nine-letter single-syllable word:
straights
Not as in “dire” or “of Magellan,” but as in poker.
I had a CGI problem, I backed out and re-previewed and everything, and I still get a double-post. :mad:
- What about underfund? The city council decided to underfund the investigation to prevent the DA from discovering their corruption.
Annie:
‘junkily’? Not really standard English, but even so …
Double i words:
genii (plural of genie, although Lederer once used it as a plural of genius),
Elvii (The Flying Elvii are skydiving Elvis impersonators, IIRC)
Shaw’s spellings of “fish” was “ghoti”, but there’s also “phusi”, “ffes”, “ughyce”, “Pfeechsi”, “pphiapsh”, “fuise”, and “ueisci”.
-14. The verb “cleave” is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.
What about dust? To remove dust - when one dusts furniture - and to add dust - as in “dust for fingerprints.”
A friend of mine who is Irish mentioned that the theme song to “The Nanny” had to be altered a smidge in the British Isles because of the line which talks about the titular character being thrown out on her fanny.
I’ll go in order and see how many I can debunk (or add onto):
- According to a really really cool program I got off the Utilities section of this page, there are 5 words that end in “mt.” Unfortunately, they are:
dreamt
redreamt
undreamt (don’t ask me to explain THAT one)
daydreamt
outdreamt (“Alright everybody! This here’s a dreamin’ competishin!”)
So I suppose it’s safe to say that one’s probably right.
-
This one’s probably true. I looked up “put,” but it was only about half as long as “set.”
-
Using Ken’s amazing program yet again:
underfund
underground
-
If “schwartz” is a verb, then what about “schwartzed?” Would that count as English even if it is a verb?
-
Whoo boy. Here we go:
iodous
nodous
amadous*
apodous
vanadous
hazardous
palladous
decapodous
horrendous
octopodous
stupendous
tremendous
diplopodous*
rhizopodous*
sauropodous
gastropodous
phyllopodous*
branchiopodous*
(* these words were not listed in the previous thread.)
-
Cecil covered it. (though the word may count as latin, not English.)
-
Ditto.
-
This one just says “there is,” not “there is only,” so it has to be true. I’m sure if we searched hard enough, we’d find something better, though.
-
From my Etymology Dictionary:
There’s more, but I’ll stop there, because even that is probably more than you need to know. #12 is bullshit.
-
I was skeptical, so I looked up “hiccough,” and it is a word. It said “hiccup, also hiccough.” I’ve never heard hiccough before, and predict it will be a totally dead and extinct spelling within a few years, if it isn’t already.
-
Once again, it didn’t say “only” so it’s impossible to disprove. But I did still run Ken Silverman’s Amazing Word Finder, and got the same words already mentioned here.
Re. 17: It is possible to have an entire sentence where the only vowel is Y. I forgot exactly what it was, but it was the solution to a puzzle in the game, “The 7th Guest.” IIRC, it was something like:
Shy gypsy shyly spryly tryst by my crypt.
Re: “ii” words besides skiing.
You guessed it, I’m running the amazing word-finder:
piing
teiid
obiism
skiing
teiids
obiisms
skiings
aalii (whoah. Double a and i)
genii
medii
radii
torii
aaliis
cooniine
taxiing
coniines
foliicolous
congii
alibiing
zombiism
zombiisms
bacchii (another with two double-letters!)
denarii
nauplii
senarii
spelii
filariid
reduviid
filariids
reduviids
safariing
tholeiite
tholeiites
tholeiitic
coraciiform
coraciiforms
retiarii
sartorii
sextarii
saturniid
assagaiing
assegaiing
chivariing
saturniids
turfskiing
euphausiid
euphausiids
shanghaiing
waterskiing
And as long as we’re talking about records, this is probably my largest SDMB post yet.
And to conclude my in-depth analysis, I’m going to use a Simpsons quote: