Talk:English words with uncommon properties

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[edit] Older comments

"The word stewardesses is the longest word spelt solely with the left hand when typing properly using a QWERTY keyboard. Also, the word typewriter is the longest common word spelled solely with the top line of letters on a QWERTY keyboard."

I've heard sweaterdresses for the first one, although I'm not sure that's a real word. However, isn't "proprietor" as common a word as "typewriter"?

This page is ... in dire need of work. -- Zoe

A fun long word I've heard of is an obviously contrived word from phobialist.com: hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, the fear of long words. It's claimed that they've all come from official sources, but it's hard to imaging that not being a joke. I hope the next person to read this doesn't react too hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobialistically. ;) --Patteroast 17:16, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This page was (under a former name) proposed for deletion. The consensus was to keep. Here is the deletion debate:

Template:VfD-List of unusual English words

The fifth row of the "ough" table indicates that "thought" is sometimes pronounced "thort." I find this odd. Anyway, the table ought to identify those who pronounce it that way. -- Yath 06:36, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

In British English "AW" and "OR" are the same, and whoever wrote that table picked the wrong one to generalize. I fixed it. AJD 00:42, 9 May 2004 (UTC)
Actually I've heard people say "thort" in AE. The most notable example would probably be Goofy. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 07:54, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Orange

There once was a man from Fort Orange
Who longed to make rhymes using "orange".
He gave up in despair,
Hung himself in midair,
Where he swings to and fro like a door-'inge.

Sorry, I had to. SigPig 17:29, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

It's about time people stopped perpetuating this myth. Lozenge rhymes with orange - case closed.
The once was a man from Land's End
Who sucked on a Fisherman's Friend
It taste not of orange
This strong minty lozenge
And his mate didn't appreciate the innuendo either

[edit] "Squirrelled" has one syllable?

In what accent does the word "squirrelled" have only one syllable?

I don't know, but I say the whole thing in one syllable, and I'm from the Midwestern United States, which would be General American. I can't "speak" for everyone though. -JJLeahy 22:00, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
I'm also a Midwesterner, and I can't imagine how to pronounce "squirrelled" as only one syllable. Michael Hardy 14:56, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Depends on how you speak, but to me it's one syllable. Rhymes with world. Amber388 15:02, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Ditto for the US/Mid-Atlantic. How else would it be pronounced? samwaltz 16:10, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Ditto for Rocky Mountain region (born West coast). I'm also curious how you would pronounce squirrelled with two sylables. Is it something akin to 'skwir-reld', and if so which part has the stress? -Âme Errante 09:10, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Though I've never used squirel as a verb I'd pronounce it with two but I can imagine how it'd become one in some dialects. Jimp 05:12, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I do believe that "squirrelled" is actually two syllables, thus should not be included in this catagory. In the American Heritage Dictionary it has it pronounced with two syllables (skwŭr'-əled)"squir-relled" = two syllables. I think this should be researched, omitted, or have some disclaimer attached to it. Such as SOME pronounce it as one syllable, etc. - Jeeny 02:50, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shortest word with no vowel

I think the shortest word with no vowel is "shy". Should this be added too?

Why, you should try to think of others ... my, my, my - by DavidWBrooks 00:17, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
The "y" in "shy", "why", "try", "my" and "by" is a vowel. The "y" in "yes" is not. There are no words in English that have no vowels, except invented words, abbreviations, and perhaps the Welsh borrowings on a technicality, as the article notes. JRM · Talk 14:39, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Mmmm, are you sure about that? Markb 13:16, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, JRM is quite correct, despite my joking response. The vowel list is a,e,i,o,u and sometimes y - that rule exists for these very occasions. - DavidWBrooks 15:35, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Er, I was refering to the word "mmmm"! Markb 09:38, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleave

I wonder if this is the proper page. "Cleave" is the only word that I know of that is it's own antonym. "Cleave" can be used to describe joining things together or taking them apart. Harvestdancer 23:39, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

How about fast (move quickly, fix in one spot) enjoin (to cause something to be done, to forbid something from being done)? - DavidWBrooks 23:56, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Ok, you know a few more than I do. Now the question is - is this the proper article to include them? Harvestdancer 00:01, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, you're right. I put in a short section "self-anyonyms". - DavidWBrooks 11:28, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Title

Can anyone think of a better name for this page? Matt 02:32, 18 December 2005 (UTC).

[edit] Organization of this page

This article is so long that it's hard to see how it is organized, but some subsections that seem out of place. I just moved a couple of them - antonyms and typewriter words - to the bottom, but I'm not at all certain that's the best place.

To assist in deliberation, here is the current (12/20/05) setup:

Combination of letters

  • many vowels
  • many consonants
  • alternating vowels and consonants
  • repeated letters
  • unusual word endings
  • unusual word beginnings
  • Q without U
  • other unusual spellings ('w' as vowel)
  • letters in alphabetical order
  • Palindromes
  • First and last words by reversed spelling
  • First and last words in anagram dictionary

Pairs and groups of words

  • Homophones
  • Homographs
  • Self-antonyms
  • Sequence of words formed by addition of letters
  • ‘ough’ words

Long Words

  • no heading on article
  • Longest one-syllable word

Unrhymable words

Words with large number of meanings

Acronyms as words

Typewriter words

"Palindromes" seems out of place, but I'm not sure where it could go. It would also be nice to think of a general category heading for the last four, oddball categories. - DavidWBrooks 14:08, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

  • I think typewriter words should go back under under "Combinations of letters". Also, please don't get too cavalier about deleting stuff unless you have something better to replace it with. I understand you feel there are too many examples, but it is inevitable that an article about words with unusual properties will to a large extent consist of ... erm ... examples of words with unusual properties. Matt 02:50, 22 December 2005 (UTC).
I trimmed a couple of lists of 10 examples of so-and-so to 5 examples, which I don't think is excessive; they get across the topic about without making the scroll-down so long that the reader gets lost. I'm itching to trip that too-long list of q-without-u words to just one or two of each type (e.g., a couple of Arabic names, instead of oodles of them, etc.). This article isn't supposed to be exhaustive, it's supposed to be illustrative. Probably what needs to be done is to create more alternate articles that can be linked to with a "see main article" link. - DavidWBrooks 11:24, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Inflammable

This article contains the following claim under autoantonymns, which I won't remove without consulting, though I do dispute it:

and "inflammable (the British usage of which is synonymous with flammable, while an American would take it to mean fire-proof)."

My general experience as a native speaker of American English is that inflammable can mean either "able to be ignited" or "impervious to ignition" in everyday experience depending on context, a confusion that frequently features in cartoon humor. My Websters' seems to confirm this, listing both meanings (with fire-proof first.) Perhaps this should be clarified? Xoloz 00:37, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

If you're confident that current American English usage allows either meaning then I would just go ahead and change it... Matt 23:10, 28 December 2005 (UTC).
"Inflammable" is an auto-antonym in American English as well as British usage, because it means both one thing and the opposite. - DavidWBrooks 00:26, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
I am a speaker of American English, and I have to say that I have always considered inflammable to mean "capable of being inflamed", and never "fireproof". Flammable, of course, developed because of the misleading nature of inflammable, but for me the original word has not changed. and if I needed a direct antonym to flammable, I would use non-flammable. I might just be being pedantic, though. Lesgles (talk) 02:55, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't say pedantic so much as incorrect: inflammable has never meant "capable of being inflamed" - it has always meant the opposite, much to everybody's vast confusion. Web hunt finds etymology is from medieval Latin inflammabilis meaning "liable to inflammation." - DavidWBrooks 10:17, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
What? "Inflammable" has always meant "liable to inflammation", meaning "something that can catch fire" (roughly). "Flammable" isn't even a word, except in the US. So why is Lesgles incorrect? Do you have any basis for your comment that 'inflammable has never meant "capable of being inflamed"'? --Shreevatsa 17:29, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
"Inflamable" means only that something is "capable of being inflamed" as in skin irritations or "not able to combust", but never "able to combust". If it meant "capable to combust" would that mean that "uninflammable" is a valid double-negative?Pksublime 19:36, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, I just demonstrated the confusability of the word by being as muddle-headed as you can be. I was completely backwards: inflammable means (duh!) "capable of being inflamed" rather than "incapable of being flamed" which is what I was thinking of, if you can call it thinking. If nothing else, my sloppiness demonstrates why emergency officials frown on word. - DavidWBrooks 18:59, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
I have read that "flammable" is used regularly instead of "inflammable" in industry so that people won't mis-interpret it as "non-flammable". They both mean something which burns easily, according to a dictionary found hither.Phonemonkey 14:08, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
uninflammable - a false double negative ... the in~ in inflammable is not the same one as the in~ in incapable. I've never heard/read anyone's ever using inflammable to mean the opposite of flamable.
Jimp 05:47, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Last word in dictionary

Could this be added to the article (or is there a seperate one). I originally added the town of Zzyzx, California under the "reversed order" when I misunderstood the catagory and have now removed it. Obviously "a" would be first, but I've seen this in a book somewhere and thought it might be interesting to add it here.Rt66lt 04:45, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The "not verified" tag

I've no reason to doubt the accuracy of any of the info on this page. However there are a number of little pieces of anecdotery contained here which ought to be supported by sources, the Blackwells Reading Bookshop being one. This is just the kind of page where someone could slip in a plausible-sounding but completely untrue factoid which could go unnoticed, be profilerated across all the sites which derive their content from WP, and thence become urban legend. We don't want that, do we? SP-KP 19:16, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, that one could be a hoax. The picture of the shop (on the Blackwell's Website) shows "The Friar Street Bookshop." --Nucleusboy 20:36, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Nearly EVERY statement in EVERY Wikipedia article is unsupported by sources, or may have once been supported by sources but has since undergone an unknown number of edits of unknown quality. A "plausible-sounding but untrue factoid" could easily be inserted unnoticed into nearly EVERY Wikipedia article. You might just as well slap the same banner on every page. IMO this banner should be reserved for articles where there is serious concern that large parts are in error, which you say is not the case here as far as you are concerned. Propose that the banner is removed and individual problem statements are addressed here. Otherwise the banner will just stay there forever. Matt 14:19, 31 December 2005 (UTC).
  • Just because many many other articles don't cite their sources, it doesn't mean that we should just lower our standards, in my opinion. As at least one other editor suspects that the article contains an inaccurate statement, I think the not verified tag should at least stay until a source is supplied for that. SP-KP 13:38, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Perhaps potentially inaccurate statements could be flagged with Template:Fact, rather than damning the whole article? Or start adding citations more generally? Tom Harris 14:24, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Sounds good. Go for it. SP-KP 14:53, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I've had a look through and I can't find a lot that is verifiable which is not cited, apart from the Blackwells quote referenced above. The majority of content is not verifiable from printed sources, only by an attempt to reproduce (e.g. by analysing a dictionary). This is hard to reference! Having said that, there doesn't appear to be much which is potentially objectionable; I would not expect references for anything left - I have removed the banner.
However, this isn't really my field, so I may have missed something! If you rate any of the statements as potentially inaccurate you may want to add Template:Fact tags of your own... Tom Harris 16:52, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tetete

Seems an interseting word :) Rich Farmbrough. 00:32, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Indeed. I have added it to the appropriate section. Matt 20:02, 15 September 2006 (UTC).

[edit] "Rhythmlessly"

the article says:

"Rhythmlessly" is the longest with only one vowel.

Please explain to a non-native English speaker how it is so. mikka (t) 20:27, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

No counting "y" as a vowel. - DavidWBrooks 20:41, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
That guess I did. Reason? The Y article says nothing. Not to say that vowel is sound, while "y" is letter. mikka (t)
The English rule for vowels is "a,e,i,o,u and sometimes y" because in most cases, "y" is considered a consonant; only occasionally it does the aural work of a vowel, as in words like "why" or "try". This isn't very logical, particularly when you're talking about a root word like "rhythm", which is oddly spelled (many native speakers misspell it). - DavidWBrooks 22:27, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
You are not listening to me: "y" is a letter, while vowel is a sound. Are you saying that "Rhythmlessly" is pronounced kinda sorta "rh'thmlessl'" in "correct" English (if one exists)? mikka (t)
A vowel isn't just a sound, it's also a letter; it's got two definitions. - 01:05, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, a native english speaker knows that there is a more informal definition for vowels: "A,E,I,O,U,sometimes Y" but our vowel article doesn't actually say that - it concentrates purely on the proper phonetic meaning. Maybe a change can be made to that article? Pcb21 Pete 10:22, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Since "y" functions as a vowel in this word, it has 3 vowels, not 1. It is not the longest word with only 1 vowel. JackofOz 11:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Repeated letters

In the repeated letters section, the article implies that, aside from the spurious "subbookkeeper", no word has more than three consecutive pairs of letters. Anyone got a problem with adding "balloonneer" (an habitual pilot of a (hot-air) balloon?). Oh, and I'm not sure "æ" is considered one vowel by anyone, any more than an "fi" ligature is one letter. Pirate pete 22:51, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Can you cite any real-life uses of this word? Google gives a few hits, but all the ones I looked at are just commenting on its having four consecutive pairs of letters, not using it for real. I also cannot find it in any dictionary. This suggests it may just have been invented by word puzzlists. If that's the case then a mention should be made of this fact if it's included in the article at all.
Agreed - I don't think it's a real word. "Balloonist" is the term in the US. "Ballooner" (one e) is common. The "-eer" suffix seems artificial. - !!!!

[edit] Rhymes for words that supposedly have none

The surname "Gorringe" rhymes with "orange" in standard UK pronunciation. Mathematicians pronounce (n + 1)th (the ordinal number corresponding to n + 1) to rhyme with "month". — Paul G 07:21, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I've also heard "doorhenge" rhyming with "orange", but that's kind of a stretch.Cameron Nedland 16:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unusual endings

Do any words besides Cajun and the slang Injun end in -jun? --Darksasami 21:24, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I can't think of any.Cameron Nedland 19:12, 9 June 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Repeated Words

I think this article should include a section about repeated words in sentences. I.E. "I was wondering if you had had a chance to look at this yet." and "I actually talked to him about this this morning." Pksublime 19:39, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

If the section is created, it should include this famous one, an english grammar examiner explaining his test marking: "Smith, where Jones had 'had', had had 'had had'. 'Had had' had the better mark." El Ingles 19:46, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

No, no, no. This article is English WORDS with uncommon properties, not English SENTENCES with uncommon properties (which might deserve an article, too, come to think of it) - DavidWBrooks 00:23, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
So when are we going to see that one? Pksublime 17:15, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, this is Wikipedia. You can get started any time you want to... samwaltz 16:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Examples?

In the section "Many vowels" the article says: "...conversely, a single letter may represent multiple vowels", which I understand from the context to mean that there are some English words in which a single letter is pronounced as a sequence of two or more different vowel sounds. I can't think of any examples - can anyone else? Matt 19:53, 15 September 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Read

Shouldn't there be some sort of mention of "read", since it's a very common word with two different pronounciations and meanings? --Bearbear 21:54, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Present tense and past tense of the same verb doesn't seem terribly different, unlike, say, "wind" - moving air or clock movement. - DavidWBrooks 22:27, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vowels

"It is important to note the difference between vowel letters and vowel sounds. A string of letters may represent a single vowel sound; conversely, a single letter may represent multiple vowels, or a diphthong." says the article.

I can't think of any English word in which a single letter represents more than one vowel. Note that diphthongs are not multiple vowels. I'd suggest that this needs a rewrite unless someone can find such a word. Jimp 05:29, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I made more or less the same comment above. I have added an "examples needed" note to the text. Matt 01:18, 23 February 2007 (UTC).


when you look up "diphthong" in wiki, the word "kite" is listed. would this suit your needs here? 76.181.154.63 23:27, 26 February 2007 (UTC)eli

[edit] Mississippi

Mississippi repeats the letter sequence "issi" but only by overlapping the i. It does, however, have two distinct occurrences of both the sequence "iss" and "ssi". Does this give it uniqueness in having two (slightly) different sequences of letters both repeated in the same word? --King Hildebrand 19:31, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Even if it does, that's a pretty obscure uniqueness and I would vote against mentioning it. Once you go down the "almost-exactly-repeated" road, who knows where you'll end up? - DavidWBrooks 21:05, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] PN

In the article, it claims that "almost all common English words: either start with a vowel or S, or have a vowel or H, L or R as second letter, or both. The most common exceptions have N as second letter, preceded by G, K or P". I'm afraid I struggle to think of any words beginning pn. Can someone help? --Islomaniac 973 21:46, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

  • There's pneumonia, pneumatic and a number of other pneum- words, but I don't think that pn warrants a mention as one of the "most common exceptions". I think this whole paragraph was somewhat bogus (e.g. commoner combinations, such as tw and ps, were not even mentioned), and so I rejigged it a while ago. pn is no longer there. Matt 21:45, 25 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Pint, Lint

It says that nothing rhymes with pint. Doesn't lint rhyme ? 125.23.36.216 06:19, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Pint has a long i, lint has a short i. - DavidWBrooks 12:02, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
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