bonanova Posted January 29, 2008 Report Share Posted January 29, 2008 The English language is weird. Just weird. In this post you are asked to find sixteen of the words and phrases that make it so. This should be fun ... enjoy. First, two comments This post is long. Using QUOTE or REPLY will really chew up screen space. My suggestion is -- don't do it. I've numbered the questions, so that when you give an answer you can put just the answer inside a spoiler and expose just the question number in the spoiler heading. That way you can look for answers to particular questions without seeing all the other answers too. These puzzles are not all mine. Since exposing proper attribution might suggest a search path to find the answers, I've put it in the following spoiler. You can look if you like, of course, but if you want to work these on your own, I've shielded you.Richard Lederer.Vowels 1. Most consecutive Aqueous and sequoia are words that contain 4 consecutive vowels. Another contains 5 consecutive vowels. What is it? All 5, ordered 2. At least five words contain all five vowels in alphabetical order. Abstemious, abstentious, adventitious and parecious are four of them. The fifth is in common usage. What is it? 3. At least six words contain all five vowels in reverse alphabetical order. Duoliteral, quodliteral and unoriental are three of them. Three others are in more common usage. What are they? Longest words with one vowel [unrepeated and repeated] 4. The longest word with a single [unrepeated] vowel has eight consonants. What is it? 5. The longest words with a single [repeated] vowel have 10 and 13 consonants. What are they? Consonants 6. Most consecutive One word has six consecutive consonants. What is it? 7. Longest word with one consonant [unrepeated] Several five-letter words contain only one [unrepeated] vowel consonant. [edit] Name one of them. General 8. Connect the dots Beijing and Fiji are two proper nouns that contain three consecutive dotted letters. Name another, not capitalized, word that contains three consecutive dotted letters. 9. Alphabetically consecutive letters Two words contain four consecutive letters that are also alphabetically consecutive. What are they?They begin with [different] spatially related prepositions.The letters [in both words] are rstu.10. Sound the letters Essay [sA], enemy [NME] and excellency [XLNC] are words whose pronunciation comprise only letter sounds. What word's pronunciation can be accomplished using five letters? 11. Pros and Joes Nouns. Amazingly, five personal pronouns [without scrambling them, and using no other letters] can be juxtaposed and overlapped to form a single common noun. What is the noun? 12. Palindromic words The longest palindromic cluster of letters embedded in an English word is sensuousnes. A final s makes the word itself. The longest palindromic word of all is the arcane eleven-letter chemistry-related detartrated. The longest palindromic word likely to be found in a common dictionary has nine letters. What is it? Bonus: a word whose meaning might be inferred by reversing its letters: Embargo => O grab me! 13. Even and odd Extracting the alternating, even and odd, letters from some words yield two new words. Two of these yield the four words cold, lug, one and shoe. What are the two words that produce them? 14. Triangular words Triangular words have letter counts of 1, 2, 3, 4 ... and thus have a total length that is a triangular number: 1, 3, 6, 10, 15 ... One proper triangular word is Tennessee's - t-1, n-2, s-3 and e-4. Name a 10-letter triangular word that is not capitalized. 15. Typewriter words These are words comprising [with repeats allowed] letters from a single row on a standard keyboard. The longest of these words have ten letters. Two of them are proprietor and perpetuity. What is the third? 16. Pangrams A familiar short sentence [33 letters] that contains all 26 letters is The A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. [edit]* Find one that uses fewer than 33 letters. *Thanks to Browne85 in post #4 for this edit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest Posted January 29, 2008 Report Share Posted January 29, 2008 The answer I know to this question is "Strengths ", there might be others Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 This looks fun. Don't have time for a while to do it though. Maybe Saturday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 1. Queuing 2. Facetious 5. Effervescence, defenseless 6. Rhythms? Don't know if you count y as a consonant or a vowel 7. Queue 8. hijinks 15. Typewriter 16. A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 bonanova Posted February 2, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 2, 2008 1. Queuing 2. Facetious 5. Effervescence, defenseless 6. Rhythms? Don't know if you count y as a consonant or a vowel 7. Queue 8. hijinks 15. Typewriter 16. A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Re: 6. - In rhythms, y is counted as a vowel. Re: 16. - I made a mistake in the OP. You found the 33-letter example. Can you find a shorter one? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest Posted February 3, 2008 Report Share Posted February 3, 2008 jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz (31 letters) Hows this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 bonanova Posted February 4, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 4, 2008 Hows thisjackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz (31 letters) OK. We have answers for 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 15, 16. Have at it ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 bonanova Posted February 10, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2008 Bumping this since some parts are not answered. <_< Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest Posted February 10, 2008 Report Share Posted February 10, 2008 Understudy, overstuff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest Posted April 19, 2008 Report Share Posted April 19, 2008 (edited) 1. Queueing 2. Facetious. Facetiously is, to my knowledge, the only word that has all 5 vowels plus Y in order. 4. Strengths. 7. Not sure on this one, but I have some guesses. Queue, Areae. Probably both of these can be bettered tho. 8. Hijinks 15. Typewriter And not on this list, but should be...Longest word in English that has all of its letters in reverse alphabetical order, no letters are repeated or doubled. (wronged) Edited April 19, 2008 by Stevebcincy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 bonanova Posted April 19, 2008 Author Report Share Posted April 19, 2008 1. Queueing 2. Facetious. Facetiously is, to my knowledge, the only word that has all 5 vowels plus Y in order. 3. - 4. Strengths. 5. - 6. - 7. Not sure on this one, but I have some guesses. Queue, Areae. Probably both of these can be bettered tho. 8. Hijinks 9. - And not on this list, but should be...Longest word in English that has all of its letters in reverse alphabetical order, no letters are repeated or doubled. (wronged) Stevebcincy, Thanks for your contribution [reverse alpha word]. You're right - it should be in the mix. Why not post it - either as a question: what is ... or what is special about this word ___? - bn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Nikyma Posted April 20, 2008 Report Share Posted April 20, 2008 1. Queueing 2. Facetious 3. Subcontinental, uncomplimentary 4. Strengths 5. Strengthlessness, Defenselessness 6. Nymphly 7. Queue 8. Hijinks 9. understudy, superstud 10. Expediency XPDNC 11. ushers 12. Redivider 13. lounge, schooled 14. no guess 15. Typewriter 16. The five boxing wizards jump quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest Posted June 13, 2008 Report Share Posted June 13, 2008 How quickly daft jumping zebras vex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest Posted June 13, 2008 Report Share Posted June 13, 2008 surely Rotavator is the one everyone knows? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
0 Guest Posted June 13, 2008 Report Share Posted June 13, 2008 I heard this elsewhere, but... Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Question
bonanova
The English language is weird. Just weird. In this post you are
asked to find sixteen of the words and phrases that make it so.
This should be fun ... enjoy.
First, two comments
This post is long.
Using QUOTE or REPLY will really chew up screen space.
My suggestion is -- don't do it.
I've numbered the questions, so that when you give an answer
you can put just the answer inside a spoiler and expose
just the question number in the spoiler heading. That way
you can look for answers to particular questions without
seeing all the other answers too.
These puzzles are not all mine.
Since exposing proper attribution might suggest a search
path to find the answers, I've put it in the following spoiler.
You can look if you like, of course, but if you want to
work these on your own, I've shielded you.
Vowels
1. Most consecutive
Aqueous and sequoia are words that contain 4 consecutive vowels.
Another contains 5 consecutive vowels.
What is it?
All 5, ordered
2. At least five words contain all five vowels in alphabetical order.
Abstemious, abstentious, adventitious and parecious are four of them.
The fifth is in common usage.
What is it?
3. At least six words contain all five vowels in reverse alphabetical order.
Duoliteral, quodliteral and unoriental are three of them.
Three others are in more common usage.
What are they?
Longest words with one vowel [unrepeated and repeated]
4. The longest word with a single [unrepeated] vowel has eight consonants.
What is it?
5. The longest words with a single [repeated] vowel have 10 and 13 consonants.
What are they?
Consonants
6. Most consecutive
One word has six consecutive consonants.
What is it?
7. Longest word with one consonant [unrepeated]
Several five-letter words contain only one [unrepeated] vowel consonant. [edit]
Name one of them.
General
8. Connect the dots
Beijing and Fiji are two proper nouns that contain three consecutive dotted letters.
Name another, not capitalized, word that contains three consecutive dotted letters.
9. Alphabetically consecutive letters
Two words contain four consecutive letters that are also alphabetically consecutive.
What are they?
10. Sound the letters
Essay [sA], enemy [NME] and excellency [XLNC] are words whose pronunciation comprise only letter sounds.
What word's pronunciation can be accomplished using five letters?
11. Pros and Joes Nouns.
Amazingly, five personal pronouns [without scrambling them, and using no other letters] can be
juxtaposed and overlapped to form a single common noun.
What is the noun?
12. Palindromic words
The longest palindromic cluster of letters embedded in an English word is sensuousnes. A final s makes the word itself.
The longest palindromic word of all is the arcane eleven-letter chemistry-related detartrated.
The longest palindromic word likely to be found in a common dictionary has nine letters.
What is it?
Bonus: a word whose meaning might be inferred by reversing its letters:
Embargo => O grab me!
13. Even and odd
Extracting the alternating, even and odd, letters from some words yield two new words.
Two of these yield the four words cold, lug, one and shoe.
What are the two words that produce them?
14. Triangular words
Triangular words have letter counts of 1, 2, 3, 4 ... and thus have a total length that is a triangular number: 1, 3, 6, 10, 15 ...
One proper triangular word is Tennessee's - t-1, n-2, s-3 and e-4.
Name a 10-letter triangular word that is not capitalized.
15. Typewriter words
These are words comprising [with repeats allowed] letters from a single row on a standard keyboard.
The longest of these words have ten letters.
Two of them are proprietor and perpetuity.
What is the third?
16. Pangrams
A familiar short sentence [33 letters] that contains all 26 letters is The A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. [edit]*
Find one that uses fewer than 33 letters.
*Thanks to Browne85 in post #4 for this edit.
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