hey this is my first post, and of course as are nearly all SDMB questions, it is pretty dorky. well neway, just out of curiosity, how are the letters of the alphabet spelled. and secondly, are there any words in english with the same letter three times consecutively?
Well, I don’t know about the spelling of the letters, but I do know the answer to the second part of your question. The word is “goddessship.” *Now, can you name a word that has three consecutive double letters?
according to the scabble player’s dictionary, there is only one “word” that has the same letter three times:
brrr
hey, there’s a reason “word” was caged in quotes.
according to the OED, “godess-ship” exists with a dash, so does “princess-ship” i suppose following the same paradigm, we can construct “actress-ship” and “baroness-ship” and “waitress-ship.”
brasssmith
chillloss
goddessship
headmistressship
weeest
seeer
frillless
brrr
esssse (an obsolete form of ashes) is in the oed2.
bossship
countessship
duchessship
governessship
hostessship
postmistressship
laparohysterosalpingooophorectomy[/ul]
Does anyone remember what it was that was supposed to be special about the word committee? Was it supposed to be the shortest word with 3 double-letter pairs, or the commonest? Or perhaps the shortest such common word, or the commonest such short word? Appellee is shorter (but less common), and successfully* appears to be about as common as committee, but not as short. Some other common words are addressee, bookkeeper, aggressiveness, and stubbornness. I have dozens more, but I won’t bore you . . . (Am I too late?)