# Tell me some wonderful words. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 15, 2018, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181 "2018-06-15T23:19:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181/21 "2018-06-16T14:03:41Z")
Forty–The only number that, when spelled out, has the letters in alphabetical order. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181/22 "2018-06-16T14:09:29Z")
> [@Delicious](#): > > Gullible is spelt and pronounced exactly the same in all European languages …and is derived from the fact that the common gull will try and hatch pretty much any egg-shaped object. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181/23 "2018-06-16T15:00:10Z")
Do y’all remember why _ **smiles** _ is the longest word in English? > [@RealityChuck](#): > > There are others, he said **facetiously**. Facetiously? Does that almost mean _ **half-seriously** _? > [@](#): > > **Four** is the only counting number that describes how many letters it has. Few has few letters; several has several. And what about ‘Half a score and six’? Or ‘A baker’s dozen’? (The baker is famous for throwing in an extra item — in this case an apostrophe.) For most consecutive vowels in an English word, I don’t think you can beat _ **miaouing** _. You can tie it with some proper names (Omar Khaiyyam, Laura Cayouette) or by pretending _ **blueeyed** _ doesn’t have a hyphen. For most consecutive consonants, try _ **borschts** _ or _ **latchstring** _. It’s not what OP is looking for, but I’m impressed with the “trivia” fact that _ **five** _ and _ **cinco** _ are [cognates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognate). ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181/24 "2018-06-16T16:09:22Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Do y’all remember why _ **smiles** _ is the longest word in English? **Taut** is 92 million times longer. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181/25 "2018-06-16T19:07:12Z")
**Diabolical** Just a fun word! ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181/26 "2018-06-16T19:17:14Z")
I like “obloquy” for no particular reason except that it’s not very common and I once got a lot of points for it in Scrabble. Also very useful in Pit threads. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181/27 "2018-06-16T19:23:23Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Do y’all remember why _ **smiles** _ is the longest word in English? > > Facetiously? Does that almost mean _ **half-seriously** _? > > Few has few letters; several has several. And what about ‘Half a score and six’? Or ‘A baker’s dozen’? (The baker is famous for throwing in an extra item — in this case an apostrophe.) > > For most consecutive vowels in an English word, I don’t think you can beat _ **miaouing** _. You can tie it with some proper names (Omar Khaiyyam, Laura Cayouette) or by pretending _ **blueeyed** _ doesn’t have a hyphen. For most consecutive consonants, try _ **borschts** _ or _ **latchstring** _. > > It’s not what OP is looking for, but I’m impressed with the “trivia” fact that _ **five** _ and _ **cinco** _ are [cognates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognate). Similarly, although a little clearer to see, the words “cosmetics” and “cosmos” are cognates. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181/28 "2018-06-16T19:26:19Z")
I just came across the very rare word “marrowsky”, a synonym of “spoonerism”. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181/29 "2018-06-16T19:56:03Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > I like “obloquy” for no particular reason except that it’s not very common and I once got a lot of points for it in Scrabble. Also very useful in Pit threads. Also it’s a not-completely-rare word that is not particularly indebted to foreign influence that nonetheless has no vowel beyond the “u”. I can’t think of a more common word with a “qu” that is not followed by a vowel. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181/30 "2018-06-16T20:04:59Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Also it’s a not-completely-rare word that is not particularly indebted to foreign influence that nonetheless has no vowel beyond the “u”. I can’t think of a more common word with a “qu” that is not followed by a vowel. Surely the “y” counts as a vowel here? It is pronounced as the “i” sound in the last syllable in this pronunciation guide from the OED online. Pronunciation obloquy/ˈɒbləkwi ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181/31 "2018-06-16T20:47:43Z")
I like **contumely** because it doesn’t look like the noun it is. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181/32 "2018-06-16T21:28:38Z")
Why does \*monosyllabic \*have to be such a long word? ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2018, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181/33 "2018-06-16T23:50:28Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > I can’t think of a more common word with a “qu” that is not followed by a vowel. How about **qubit** , which is commonly used when talking about quantum computing. I suspect that it’s more frequently used than obloquy. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181/34 "2018-06-17T00:12:16Z")
\*\*Snack \*\*and **snot** are cognates. No one has any clear idea where the word **bird** comes from. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181/35 "2018-06-17T06:49:57Z")
Sphygmomanometer Most of us just call the thing a “blood pressure meter”. But I know a really cool guy who taught his 3 year old daughter to point to it, and say it out loud, every time they went to the doctor. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181/36 "2018-06-17T11:54:23Z")
Onomatopoeia - the formation of words whose sound is imitative of the sound of the noise or action designated, such as hiss, buzz, and bang. It just seems like the perfect word for what it means. ---
**Author:** ![Monimonika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85e7bf/32.png) [@Monimonika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monimonika)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181/37 "2018-06-17T15:26:54Z")
Mississippi. It’s just fun to spell in a sing-song way. Also, a joke I found via Google: > [@](#): > > A bus stops and two Italian men get on. They sit down and engage in an animated conversation. > > The lady sitting behind them ignores them at first, but her attention is galvanized when she hears one of he men say the following: > > “Emma come first. Den I come. Den two asses come together. I come once-a-more. Two asses, they come together again. I come again and pee twice. Then I come one lasta time.” > > “You foul mouthed swine,” retorted the lady indignantly. “In this country we don’t talk about our sex lives in public!” > > “Hey, coola down lady,” said the man. “Who talkin’ abouta sexa? I’m > just tellin’ my frienda how to spella ‘Mississippi’.” ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181/38 "2018-06-17T15:40:11Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > \*\*Snack \*\*and **snot** are cognates. What? Why? ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181/39 "2018-06-17T17:30:56Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > **hijinks** - has the sequence i j i, giving three of those little floating dots in a row. Ujiji has four dotted letters in a row. It’s the town in Tanzania where Stanley tracked down Dr. Livingstone. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2018, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181/40 "2018-06-17T18:02:10Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > Why does \*monosyllabic \*have to be such a long word? I agree. Syllable simply has too many of itself, the way I see it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-some-wonderful-words/816181.md?page=3)