This is a bit easier than the last one, but I’m hoping it will take at least 10 minutes to crack. As always, put your guesses in spoiler boxes for those who don’t wander by for 15 or 20 minutes …
What is the significance of the following list?
BUT
COP
DIN
FLAT
HAM
JAB
JIG
LAD
MAT
RUB
SHIM
SPAT
STAG
SUM
SWAG
I was thinkingbecause they have the same etymological root as SUPPER, FATTER and ROBBER. But that would exclude RUB and possibly SPAT too, wouldn’t it?
Once you added the IOW, that gave me a better answer. (And I timed the 2 minutes from when I popped into the thread.)
The new word is substantially different from the original word. But (negative conjunction) -> butter (food); cop (slang for police) -> copper (metal, and origin of the slang “cop”); stag (male deer) -> stagger (what a pirate does after drinking too much rum); etc. But sup (eat a meal) -> supper (third meal of the day); fat (overweight) -> fatter (become overweight); rob (pillage, plunder, rifle, loot, drink up!) -> robber (one who pillages, etc.).
Added on preview: Yep, what those three people said.
Hmm. Flat and flatter (for at least one meaning of flatter, ie, more flat) don’t really fit on your list. Of course, an apartment in Britain certainly has nothing to do with complimenting somebody with the intention of swaying their opinion.
Sure, but adding numbers together does not a summer make, if you ask any math-challenged victim of that oddly, appropriately conflated-meaning term, “summer school.”