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==> language/english/pronunciation/homophone/trivial.p <==
Consider the free non-abelian group on the twenty-six letters of the
alphabet with all relations of the form <word1> = <word2>, where <word1>
and <word2> are homophones (i.e. they sound alike but are spelled
differently).  Show that every letter is trivial.

For example, be = bee, so e is trivial.

==> language/english/pronunciation/homophone/trivial.s <==
be = bee ==> e is trivial;
ail = ale ==> i is trivial;
week = weak ==> a is trivial;
lie = lye ==> y is trivial;
to = too ==> o is trivial;
two = to ==> w is trivial;
hour = our ==> h is trivial;
faggot = fagot ==> g is trivial;
bowl = boll ==> l is trivial;
gell = jel ==> j is trivial;
you = ewe ==> u is trivial;
damn = dam ==> n is trivial;
limb = limn ==> b is trivial;
bass = base ==> s is trivial;
cede = seed ==> c is trivial;
knead = need ==> k is trivial;
add = ad ==> d is trivial;
awful = offal ==> f is trivial;
gram = gramme ==> m is trivial;
grip = grippe ==> p is trivial;
cue = queue ==> q is trivial;
carrel = carol ==> r is trivial;
butt = but ==> t is trivial;
lox = locks ==> x is trivial;
tsar = czar ==> z is trivial;
vlei = flay ==> v is trivial.

For a related problem, see _The Jimmy's Book_ (_The American Mathematical
Monthly_, Vol. 93, Num. 8 (Oct. 1986), p.  637):

Consider the free group on twenty-six letters A, ..., Z.  Mod out by
the relation that defines two words to be equivalent if (a) one is a
permutation of the other and (b) each appears as a legitimate English
word in the dictionary.  Identify the center of this group.

    -- clong@remus.rutgers.edu (Chris Long)

==> language/english/pronunciation/oronym.p <==
List some oronyms (phrases or sentences that can be read in two ways
with the same sound).

==> language/english/pronunciation/oronym.s <==
Phrases:
    a name		an aim
    a nice man		an ice man
    a notion		an ocean
    append		up end
    bang cat		bank at
    be quiet		Beek Wyatt
    bean ice		be nice
    bee feeder		beef eater
    beer drips		beard rips
    buys ink		buy zinc
    catch it		cat shit
    catch ooze		cat chews
    Cato		Kay toe
    damn pegs		damp eggs
    field red		feel dread
    forced air		four stair
    fork reeps		four creeps
    form ate		four mate
    freed Annie		free Danny
    grade A		gray day
    grasp rice		grass price
    great ape		grey tape
    her butter		herb utter
    hiatus		Hy ate us
    homemaker		hoe-maker
    I scream		ice cream
    I stink		iced ink
    it sprays		it's praise
    it swings		its wings
    keep sticking	keeps ticking
    known ocean		no notion
    lawn chair		launch air
    may cough		make off
    new Deal		nude eel
    new direction	nude erection
    night rate		nitrate
    pawn shop		paunch op
    peace talks		pea stalks
    pinch air		pin chair
    play taught		plate ought
    plum pie		plump eye
    scar face		scarf ace
    seal eyeing		see lying
    see Mabel		seem able
    see the meat	see them eat
    seize ooze		see zoos
    sick squid		six quid
    slide rule		sly drool
    standards-based	standard-spaced
    stay dill		stayed ill
    that's tough	that stuff
    the suns rays meet	the sons raise meat
    thing call		think all
    tour an		two ran
    tulips		two lips
    twenty six ones	twenty sick swans
    we'll own		we loan
    well done other	weld another
    white shoes		why choose
    yelp at		yell Pat
    your crimes		York rhymes
    youth read		you thread

Sentences:
    A politician's fate often hangs in a [delicate / delegate] balance.
    Any [grey day/grade A] would be bad news for one professor I know.
    Are you aware of the words you have [just uttered / just stuttered]?
    He would kill Hamlet for [that reason / that treason].
    How did you do in the [contest / Kant test]?
    I don't know how [mature/much your] people enjoy such a show.
    I have [known oceans/no notions] that you yourself couldn't imagine.
    I like [sadder day/ Saturday].
    If you listen you can hear the [night rain / night train].
    I'm taking [a nice / an ice] cold shower.
    Oh, no!  [This guy/The sky] is falling!
    Reading in the library is sometimes [allowed / aloud].
    [Some others / Some mothers] I've seen...
    That reflects the [secretariat's sphere / secretariat's fear] of competence.
    That's the [biggest hurdle / biggest turtle] I've ever seen!
    The [stuffy nose / stuff he knows] can lead to problems.
    Where is the [spice center / spy center]?
    [White shoes: / Why choose] the trademark of Pat Boone[./?]
    You'd be surprised to see a [mint spy / mince pie] in your bank.

See also:
    the archive entry "telegrams"

References:

    Barry, W J, 1981, Internal Juncture and Speech Communication,
    Arbeitsberichte.  Institut fu"r Phonetik.  University of Kiel.  Vol 16.

    Brandreth, Giles, _The Joy of Lex_, 1980, New York: William Morrow and Co.,
    pp. 58-59, who coined the word "oronym"

    Cutler & Butterfield, Rhythmic Cues to Speech Segmentation.  Evidence
    from juncture misperception, 1992, Journal of Memory and Language, Vol
    31(2) 218-236  Provides materials in context frames where the
    alternative segmentations lead to one Vs two word parsings: in furs Vs
    infers.

    Grice, Martine and Hazan, Valerie, 1989, The assessment of synthetic
    speech intelligibility using semantically unpredictable sentences,
    Speech, Hearing and Language, Work in Progress, University College
    London. The inferior quality of the synthetic speech often caused more
    than one type of error at once (bright eye -> dry tie).

    Hoard, James E., `Juncture and syllable structure', Phonetica 15,
    1966, 96-109

    Hockett, Charles F. Hockett, _A Course in Modern Linguistics_, New York:
    Macmillan, 1958, 54-61

    Lehiste, Ilse.  1960.  An acoustic-phonetic study of internal open
    juncture.  Phonetica 5 (supplement). pp. 5-54.

    Nakatani L.  H.  & Dukes, K.D., 1977, Locus of Segmental Cues to Word
    Juncture, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol 62, pp
    714-719 and

    Price P, Ostendorf M, Shattuck-Huffnagel S & Fong C (1991) "The use of
    prosody in syntactic disambibuation" JASA 90 (6) pp2956-2970. It has
    some good examples,

==> language/english/pronunciation/phonetic.letters.p <==
What does "FUNEX" mean?

==> language/english/pronunciation/phonetic.letters.s <==
FUNEX? (Have you any eggs?)
SVFX. (Yes, we have eggs.)
FUNEM? (Have you any ham?)
SVFM. (Yes, we have ham.)
FUMNX? (Have you ham and eggs?)
S,S:VFM,VFX,VFMNX! (Yes, yes: we have ham, we have eggs, we have ham and eggs!)

CD ED BD DUCKS? (See the itty bitty ducks?)
MR NOT DUCKS! (Them are not ducks!)
OSAR, CDEDBD WINGS? (Oh yes they are, see the itty bitty wings?)
LILB MR DUCKS! (Well I'll be, them are ducks!)

In Spanish:
SOCKS. (Eso si que es.)

==> language/english/pronunciation/rhyme.p <==
What English words are hard to rhyme?

"Rhyme is the identity in sound of an accented vowel in a word...and
of all consonantal and vowel sounds following it; with a difference in
the sound of the consonant immediately preceding the accented vowel."
(From The Complete Rhyming Dictionary by Clement Wood).  Appropriately
Wood says a couple of pages later, "If a poet commences, 'October is
the wildest month' he has estopped himself from any rhyme; since
"month" has no rhyme in English."

==> language/english/pronunciation/rhyme.s <==
Unless noted otherwise, all words occur in Webster's Ninth Collegiate
Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Springfield, MA, 1986.

NI3 = Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary
NI2 = Merriam-Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition
RHD = Random House Unabridged Dictionary
+ means slang, foreign, obsolete, dialectical, etc.

Word		Rhyme					Assonance
---------------	---------------------------------------	--------------------
aitch		brache (NI2+), taich (NI2+)		naish
angry		unangry (NI2+)				aggry
angst							lanx
beards		weirds
breadth							death
bulb							pulp
carpet		charpit
chimney		timne, polymny (NI2+)
cusp		wusp (NI2)				bust
depth							stepped
eighth							faith
else							belts
exit		direxit (RHD+)				sexist
fiends		teinds, piends
filched		hilched (NI3+), milched (NI2)		zilch
filth		spilth, tilth
fifth							drift
film		pilm (NI3+)				kiln
fluxed		luxed (NI3+), muxed (NI3+)		ducked
glimpsed						rinsed
gospel							hostile
gulf							pulse
jinxed		outminxed (?)				blinked
leashed		niched, tweesht (NI2+)
liquid							wicked
mollusk							smallest
mouthed		southed
month							grumph
mulcts							bulks
mulched		gulched (NI3+)				bulged
ninth							pint
oblige							bides
oomph		sumph (NI3+)
orange		sporange
pint		jint (NI2+)				bind
poem		phloem, proem
pregnant	regnant
purple		curple (NI3+), hirple (NI3+)
puss		schuss
rhythm		smitham
scalds		balds, caulds (NI3+), faulds (NI3+)
scarce		clairce (NI2), hairse (NI2+)		cares
sculpts							gulps
silver		chilver (NI3+)
sixth							kicks
spirit		squiret (NI2+)
tenth		nth					bent
tsetse		baronetcy, intermezzi, theetsee
tuft		yuft
twelfth							health
widow		kiddo
width							bridge
window		indo, lindo
wolf							bulls

==> language/english/pronunciation/silent.letter.p <==
For each letter, what word contains that letter silent?

==> language/english/pronunciation/silent.letter.s <==
aisle
comb
indict
handsome
twitched
halfpenny
gnome
myrrh
business
marijuana
knock
talk
mnemonic
autumn
people
psyche
cinqcents
forecastle
viscount
hautboy
plaque
fivepence
write
tableaux
prayer
rendezvous
****
Unless noted otherwise, all words occur in Webster's Third New International
Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Springfield, MA, 1961.

==> language/english/pronunciation/silent.most.p <==
What word has the most silent letters in a row?

==> language/english/pronunciation/silent.most.s <==
BROUGHAM (4, UGHA)
  for each letter  AISLE, COMB, INDICT,
   HANDSOME, TWITCHED, HALFPENNY, GNOME, MYRRH, BUSINESS, MARIJUANA, KNOCK,
   TALK, MNEMONIC, AUTUMN, PEOPLE, PSYCHE, CINQCENTS, FORECASTLE, VISCOUNT,
   HAUTBOY, PLAQUE, FIVEPENCE, WRITE, TABLEAUX, PRAYER, RENDEZVOUS
  homophones, for each letter  O(A)R, LAM(B), S(C)ENT,
   LE(D)GER, DO(E), WAF(F), REI(G)N, (H)OUR, WA(I)VE, HAJ(J)I, (K)NOT, HA(L)VE,
   PRIM(M)ER, DAM(N), J(O)UST, (P)SALTER, ?, CAR(R)IES, (S)CENT, TARO(T),
   B(U)Y, ?, T(W)O, ?, RE(Y), BIZ(Z)
****
Unless noted otherwise, all words occur in Webster's Third New International
Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Springfield, MA, 1961.

==> language/english/pronunciation/syllable.p <==
What words have an exceptional number of letters per syllable?

==> language/english/pronunciation/syllable.s <==
  longest for each number of syllables 
   one SCRAUNCHED  [SQUIRRELLED (11)] two SCRATCHBRUSHED (14)
   one, for each letter  ARCHED, BROUGHAMS, CRAUNCHED, DRAUGHTS,
    EARTHED, FLINCHED, GROUCHED, HAUNCHED, ITCHED, JOUNCED, KNIGHTS, LAUNCHED,
    MOOCHED, NAUGHTS, OINKED, PREACHED, QUETCHED, REACHED, SCRAUNCHED,
    THOUGHTS, UMPHS, VOUCHED, WREATHED, XYSTS, YEARNED, ZOUAVES
   two, for each letter  ARCHFIENDS, BREAKTHROUGHS, CLOTHESHORSE,
    DRAUGHTBOARDS, EARTHTONGUES, FLAMEPROOFED, GREATHEART, HAIRSBREADTHS,
    INTHRALLED, JUNETEENTHS, KNICKKNACKS, LIGHTWEIGHTS, MOOSETONGUES,
    NIGHTCLOTHES, OUTSTRETCHED, PLOUGHWRIGHTS, QUICKTHORNS, ROUGHSTRINGS,
    SCRATCHBRUSHED, THROATSTRAPS, UNSTRETCHED, VERSESMITHS, WHERETHROUGH,
    XANTHINES, YOURSELVES, ZEITGEISTS
  shortest for each number of syllables 
   two AA (2) three AREA (4) [O'IO (3)] four IEIE (4) five OXYOPIA (7)
   six ONIOMANIA (9) [AMIOIDEI (8)] seven EPIDEMIOLOGY (12) [OMOHYOIDEI (10)]
   eight EPIZOOTIOLOGY (13) nine EPIZOOTIOLOGICAL (16)
   ten EPIZOOTIOLOGICALLY (18) twelve HUMUHUMUNUKUNUKUAPUAA (21)
****
Unless noted otherwise, all words occur in Webster's Third New International
Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Springfield, MA, 1961.

==> language/english/pronunciation/telegrams.p <==
Since telegrams cost by the word, phonetically similar messages can be cheaper.
See if you can decipher these extreme cases:

UTICA CHANSON MIGRATE INVENTION ANNUAL KNOBBY SORRY IN FACTUAL BEEN CLOVER.

WEED LICHEN ICE CHEST FOREARM OTHER DISGUISE DELIMIT.

CANCEL MYOCARDIA ITS INFORMAL FUNCTION.

YEARN AFFIX, LOST UKASE, UGANDA JAIL, CONSERVE TENURES YACHT APPEAL.

EYELET SHEILA INDIA HOUSE SHEILAS TURKEY.

BOB STILT SEA, CANTANKEROUS BOAT, HUMUS GOAD IMMORTAL DECOS GUARD.

MARY SINBAD SHEER TOURNEY AUGUSTA WIND NOCTURNE TOOTHBRUSH.

WHINE YOSEMITE NAMES SOY CAN PHILATELIST.

ALBEIT DETRACT UNIVERSE EDIFY MUSTAFA TICKET TICKET IN.

==> language/english/pronunciation/telegrams.s <==
These are from an old "Games" magazine:

UTICA CHANSON MIGRATE INVENTION ANNUAL KNOBBY SORRY IN FACTUAL BEEN CLOVER.
	You take a chance on my great invention and you'll not be sorry.
	 In fact, you'll be in clover.

WEED LICHEN ICE CHEST FOREARM OTHER DISGUISE DELIMIT.
	We'd like a nice chest for our mother; the sky's the limit.

CANCEL MYOCARDIA ITS INFORMAL FUNCTION.
	Can't sell my ol' car dear; it's in for malfunction.

YEARN AFFIX, LOST UKASE, UGANDA JAIL, CONSERVE TENURES YACHT APPEAL.
	You're in a fix. Lost your case. You goin' to jail.
	Can serve ten years. You ought to appeal.

EYELET SHEILA INDIA HOUSE SHEILAS TURKEY.
	I let Sheila in their house; she lost her key.

BOB STILT SEA, CANTANKEROUS BOAT, HUMUS GOAD IMMORTAL DECOS GUARD.
	Bob's still at sea; can't anchor his boat. You must go to him
	or tell the coast guard.

MARY SINBAD SHEER TOURNEY AUGUSTA WIND NOCTURNE TOOTHBRUSH.
	Mary's in bed; she hurt her knee.  A gust of wind
	knocked her into the brush.

WHINE YOSEMITE NAMES SOY CAN PHILATELIST.
	Why don't you (why'n'ya) send me the names, so I can
	fill out a list.

ALBEIT DETRACT UNIVERSE EDIFY MUSTAFA TICKET TICKET IN.
	I'll be at the track and I have a receipt if I must have a ticket to
	get in.

Here are some others not from "Games":

BRUISES HURT ERASED AFFORD ERECTED TOO
	Bruce is hurt. He raced a Ford. He wrecked it, too.

==> language/english/puns.p <==
Where can I find a collection of puns?

==> language/english/puns.s <==
garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/ts/tspun12.zip

==> language/english/rare.trigraphs.p <==
What trigraphs (three-letter combinations) occur in only one word?

==> language/english/rare.trigraphs.s <==
Here is a list of all the trigraphs which occur exactly once in the union of
_Official Scrabble Words_ (First Edition), the _Official Scrabble Players
Dictionary_ and _Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (Second Edition)_,
together with the words in which they occur.

The definition of "word" is a problematic.  For example, lots of words
starting deoxy- contain the trigraph `eox', but no others do.  Should
`eox' be on the list?

Common words are marked with a *.

aae baaed
adq*headquarter headquarters
ajs svarajs
aqs talaqs
bks nabks
bze subzero
cda ducdame
dph*headphone headphones 
dsf*handsful 
dts veldts
dzu kudzu kudzus 
ekd*weekday weekdays 
evh evhoe
evz evzone evzones 
exv sexvalent 
ezv*rendezvous
fhu cliffhung
fjo fjord fjords 
fsp*offspring offsprings 
gds smaragds
ggp*eggplant eggplants 
gnb signboard signboards 
gnp*signpost signposted signposting signposts
gnt sovereignty
gty hogtying
gza*zigzag zigzagged zigzagging zigzaggy zigzags
hds camanachds
hky droshky
hlr kohlrabi kohlrabies kohlrabis
hrj lehrjahre
hyx asphyxia asphyxias asphyxiate asphyxies asphyxy 
itv mitvoth 
iwy skiwy
ixg sixgun
jds slojds
jje hajjes
jki pirojki pirojki
jym jymold
kky yukky
ksg*thanksgiving
kuz yakuza 
kvo mikvoth
kyj*skyjack skyjacked skyjacker skyjackers skyjacking skyjackings skyjacks
llj killjoy killjoys
lmd filmdom filmdoms
ltd*meltdown meltdowns
lxe calxes
lzy schmalzy
mds fremds
mfy comfy
mhs ollamhs
mky dumky
mmm dwammming
mpg*campground
mss bremsstrahlung
muo muon muonic muonium muoniums muons
nhs sinhs 
njy benjy
nuu continuum
obg hobgoblin hobgoblins
ojk pirojki
okc*bookcase bookcases 
ovk sovkhoz sovkhozes sovkhozy
pev*grapevine grapevines
pfs dummkopfs
php ephphatha
pss topssmelt
pyj pyjama pyjamaed pyjamas
siq physique physiques
slt juslted
smk besmkes
spb*raspberries raspberry
spt claspt
swy swythe
syg*easygoing
szy groszy
tux*tux tuxedo tuxedoes tuxedos tuxes
tvy outvying
tzu tzuris
ucd ducdame
vho evhoe
vkh sovkhoz sovkhozes sovkhozy sovkhos
vly vly 
vns eevns
voh evohe
vun avuncular
wcy gawcy
wdu*sawdust sawdusted sawdusting sawdusts sawdusty 
wfr bowfront
wft ewftes
xeu exeunt
xgl foxglove foxgloves
xiw taxiway taxiways
xls cacomixls
xtd nextdoor
xva sexvalent
yks bashlyks
yrf gyrfalcon gyrfalcons 
ysd paysd
yxy asphyxy
zhk pirozhki
zow zowie
zwo*buzzword buzzwords
zzs*buzzsaw 

==> language/english/self.ref/self.ref.letters.p <==
Construct a true sentence of the form: "This sentence contains _ a's, _ b's,
_ c's, ...," where the numbers filling in the blanks are spelled out.

==> language/english/self.ref/self.ref.letters.s <==
A little history of the problem, culled from the pages of _Metamagical
Themas_, Hofstadter's collection of his _Scientific American_ columns.
First mention of it is in the Jan. '82 column.  Lee Sallows opened the
field with a sentence that began "Only the fool would take trouble to
verify that his sentence was composed of ten a's ...." etc.

Then in the addendum to the Jan.'83 column on viral sentences, Hofstadter
quotes Sallows describing his Pangram Machine, "a clock-driven cascade of
sixteen Johnson-counters," to tackle the problem. An early success was:
        "This pangram tallies five a's, one b, one c, two d's, twenty-
        eight e's, eight f's, six g's, eight h's, thirteen i's, one j,
        one k, three l's, two m's, eighteen n's, fifteen o's, two p's,
        one q, seven r's, twenty-five s's, twenty-two t's, four u's, four
        v's, nine w's, two x's, four y's, and one z."

Sallows wagered ten guilders that no-one could create a perfect self-
documenting sentence beginning, "This computer-generated pangram contains
...." within ten years.

It was solved very quickly, after Sallows' challenge appeared in Dewdney's
Oct. '84 SA column.  Larry Tesler solved it by a method Hofstadter calls
"Robinsonizing," which involves starting with an arbitrary set of values
for each letter, getting the true values when the sentence is made, and
plugging the new values back in, making a feedback loop. Eventually, you
can zero in on a set of values that work.  Tesler's sentence:
        This computer-generated pangram contains six a's, one b, three
        c's, three d's, thirty-seven e's, six f's, three g's, nine h's,
        twelve i's, one j, one k, two l's, three m's, twenty-two n's,
        thirteen o's, three p's, one q, fourteen r's, twenty-nine s's,
        twenty-four t's, five u's, six v's, seven w's, four x's, five
        y's, and one z.

The method of solution (called "Robinsonizing," after the logician Raphael
Robinson) is as follows:
1)      Fix the count of a's.
2)      Fix the count of b's.
3)      Fix the count of c's.
...
26)   Fix the count of z's.
Then, if the sentence is still wrong, go back to step 1.
 
Most attempts will fall into long loops (what Hofstadter calls attractive
orbits), but with a good computer program, it's not too hard to find a
Robinsonizing sequence that zeros in on a fixed set of values.

The February and May 1992 _Word Ways_ have articles on this subject,
titled "In Quest of a Pangram, (Part 1)" by Lee Sallows.  It tells of his
search for a self-referential pangram of the form, "This pangram
contains _ a's, ..., and one z."  (He built special hardware to search
for them.)  Two such pangrams given in the article are:

    This pangram lists four a's, one b, one c, two d's,
    twenty-nine e's, eight f's, three g's, five h's, eleven i's,
    one j, one k, three l's, two m's twenty-two n's, fifteen o's,
    two p's, one q, seven r's, twenty-six s's, nineteen t's, four
    u's, five v's, nine w's, two x's, four y's, and one z.

    This pangram contains four a's, one b, two c's, one d, thirty
    e's, six f's, five g's, seven h's, eleven i's, one j, one k,
    two l's, two m's eighteen n's, fifteen o's, two p's, one q,
    five r's, twenty-seven s's, eighteen t's, two u's, seven v's,
    eight w's, two x's, three y's, & one z.

It also contains one in Dutch by Rudy Kousbroek:

    Dit pangram bevat vijf a's, twee b's, twee c's, drie d's,
    zesenveertig e's, vijf f's, vier g's, twee h's, vijftien i's,
    vier j's, een k, twee l's, twee m's, zeventien n's, een o,
    twee p's, een q, zeven r's, vierentwintig s's, zestien t's,
    een u, elf v's, acht w's, een x, een y, and zes z's.

References:
Dewdney, A.K. Scientific American, Oct. 1984, pp 18-22.
Sallows, L.C.F. Abacus, Vol.2, No.3, Spring 1985, pp 22-40.
Sallows, L.C.F. Word Ways, Feb. & May 1992
Hofstadter, D. Scientific American, Jan. 1982, pp 12-17.

==> language/english/self.ref/self.ref.numbers.p <==
What true sentence has the form: "There are _ 0's, _ 1's, _ 2's, ...,
in this sentence"?  The "'s" can be dropped if there is only one of any
number.

==> language/english/self.ref/self.ref.numbers.s <==
There are 1 0, 7 1's, 3 2's, 2 3's, 1 4, 1 5, 1 6, 2 7's, 1 8, and 1 9
in this sentence.
 
There are 1 0, 11 1's, 2 2's, 1 3, 1 4, 1 5, 1 6, 1 7, 1 8, and 1 9
in this sentence.

==> language/english/self.ref/self.ref.words.p <==
What sentence describes its own word, syllable and letter count?

==> language/english/self.ref/self.ref.words.s <==
This sentence contains ten words, eighteen syllables, and sixty-four letters.

==> language/english/sentences/behead.p <==
Is there a sentence that remains a sentence when all its words are beheaded?

==> language/english/sentences/behead.s <==
Show this bold Prussian that praises slaughter, slaughter brings rout.

==> language/english/sentences/charades.p <==
A ....... surgeon was ....... to operate because he had .......

==> language/english/sentences/charades.s <==
A notable surgeon was not able to operate because he had no table.

==> language/english/sentences/emphasis.p <==
List some sentences that change meaning when the emphasis is moved.

==> language/english/sentences/emphasis.s <==
Give what you WANT to her and keep the rest for yourself.
Give what YOU want to HER and keep the rest for yourself.

==> language/english/sentences/pangram.p <==
A "pangram" is a sentence containing all 26 letters.
What is the shortest pangram (measured by number of letters or words)?
What is the shortest word list using all 26 letters in alphabetical order?
In reverse alphabetical order?

==> language/english/sentences/pangram.s <==
The single-letter words that have meanings unrelated to their letter shapes
or sounds, position in the alphabet, etc. are:
a - indefinite article; on; in; at; to; he; him; she; her; they; them; it; I;
    have; of; all
c - 100; cocaine; programming language
d - 500
e - base of natural logs; eccentricity; enlarging
g - acceleration of gravity; general ability; $1000; general audience
i - one; unit vector in x direction; personal pronoun; in; aye
j - one; unit vector in y direction
k - 1000; 1024; strikeout; unit vector in z direction
l - 50; ell; elevated railroad
m - 1000; em; pica; an antigen of human blood
n - an indefinite number; en; an antigen of human blood
o - oh
q - quality of oscillatory circuit
R - one of the three Rs; restricted audience
t - t-shirt
u - upper class
v - five
w - w particle
x - unknown quantity; atmospherics; adults only
y - unknown quantity; YMCA
z - unknown quantity; buzzing sound; z particle
It is therefore advisable to exclude single-letter words, with the
possible exception of 'a'.

As always, word acceptability varies with the dictionaries used.  We use these:
9C  - Merriam-Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, 1986
NI3 - Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary, 1961
NI2 - Merriam-Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, 1935
OED - Oxford English Dictionary with Supplements, 1933 - 85
'+' indicates obsolete, dialectical, slang, or otherwise substandard word.

Some exceptional pangrams:
Using only words in 9C:
Sympathizing would fix Quaker objectives. (5 words, 36 letters)
Quick brown fox, jump over the lazy dogs. (8 words, 32 letters)
Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs. (8 words, 32 letters)
Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz. (7 words, 31 letters)
The five boxing wizards jump quickly. (6 words, 31 letters)
How quickly daft jumping zebras vex. (6 words, 30 letters)
Dub waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex. (7 words, 28 letters,
                        Stephen Smith, from a palindrome by Gyles Brandreth)
Quartz glyph job vex'd cwm finks. (6 words?, 26 letters)
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz. (6 words, 26 letters, Dmitri Borgmann)
Using words in 9C and NI3:
Veldt jynx grimps waqf zho buck. (6 words, 26 letters, Michael Jones)
Using words in 9C, NI3 and NI3+:
Squdgy fez, blank jimp crwth vox. (6 words, 26 letters, Claude Shannon)
Using words in 9C, NI3, NI2 and NI2+:
Phlegms fyrd wuz qvint jackbox. (5 words, 26 letters, Dmitri Borgmann)

Some exceptional panalphabetic word lists:
jackbox viewfinder phlegmy quartz (4 words, 31 letters, Mary Hazard)
benzoxycamphors quick-flowing juventude (3 words, 36 letters, Darryl Francis)

Some exceptional nearly panalphabetic isogrammatic word lists:
blacksmith gunpowdery (2 words, 20 letters)
humpbacks frowzy tingled (3 words, 22 letters)

Some exceptional panalphabetic word lists with letters in alphabetical order:
Using only words in 9C:
a BCD ef ghi jack limn op querist ulva wax oyez (11 words, 37 letters)
ABC defog hijack limn op querist ulva wax oyez (9 words, 38 letters)
Using words in 9C and NI3:
a BCD ef ghi jak limn op qres to uva wax oyez (12 words, 34 letters)
ABC defy ghi jak limn op qres to uva wax oyez (11 words, 35 letters)
ABC defy ghi jak limn opaquers turves wax oyez (9 words, 38 letters)
scabicide afghani jokul manrope querist purview oxygenize (7 words, 51 letters)
Using words in 9C, NI3 and NI3+:
a BCD ef ghi jak limn op QRS to uva wax yez (12 words, 32 letters)
ABC defy ghi jak limn op QRS to uva wax yez (11 words, 33 letters)
ab cad ef ghi jak limn op qre stun vow ox yez (12 words, 34 letters)
ABC defy ghi jak limn op querist uva wax yez (10 words, 35 letters)
Using words in 9C, NI3, NI3+, NI2 and NI2+:
ABC def ghi jak limn op qre struv wax yez (10 words, 32 letters)
ABC def ghi jak limn opaquer struv wax yez (9 words, 34 letters)
Using words in 9C, NI3, NI3+, NI2, NI2+ and the OED:
ABC defog hij klam nop QRS tu vow XYZ (9 words, 29 letters, Jeff Grant)
ABC def ghi jak limn op qres tu vow XYZ (10 words, 30 letters)
ABC defog hij klam nop querist uvrow XYZ (8 words, 33 letters, Jeff Grant)
ABC defyghe bij sklim nop querist uvrow XYZ (8 words, 36 letters)
ABC defog hijack limnophil querist uvrow XYZ (7 words, 38 letters, Jeff Grant)

Some exceptional panalphabetic word lists with letters in reverse alpha order:
Using words from 9C:
lazy ox ow vug tsar quip on milk jib hag fed cab a (13 words, 38 letters)
lazy ox wave uts reequip on milk jihad gifted cabal (10 words, 42 letters)
Using words from 9C and NI3:
lazy ox ow vug tsar quip on milk jib hag fed caba (12 words, 38 letters)
lazy ox wave uts roque pon milk jihad gifted caba (10 words, 40 letters)
Using words from 9C, NI3 and NI2:
zo yex wu vug tsar quip on milk jib hag fed caba (12 words, 37 letters)
zo yex wave uts roque pon milk jihad gifted caba (10 words, 39 letters)

All words are main entries in 9C except the following:
9C: ghi (at 'ghee')
NI3: caba, fyrd, jak, opaquers, pon, qre(s), squdgy, uva
NI3+: jimp, QRS (at 'QRS complex'), sklim, vox (at 'vox populi'), yez
NI2: benzoxycamphors, jackbox, limnophil, quick-flowing, yex, zo
NI2+: def, juventude, klam, quar, qvint, struv, tu, wuz
OED: defyghe (at 'defy'), bij (at 'buy'), hij, nop, uvrow (at 'yuffrouw'),
	XYZ (at 'X')

The first time I saw this pangram was in Gyles Brandeth's _The Joy of Lex_.
It appeared there as:

Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.  (7 words, 28 letters, proper noun.)

I always wondered why they didn't try modifying it as:

Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex buds.  (7 words, 29 letters, no proper noun.)

However, why fast dances would irritate incipient flowers is beyond me,
so I tried again:

Waltz, dumb nymph, for quick jigs vex.  (7 words, 29 letters, no proper noun,
					 makes more sense.)

However, sounds kind of sexist, and we can maybe chop off a letter and
eliminate the sexism, although suffering some loss of sense:

Waltz, bud nymph, for quick jigs vex.  (7 words, 28 letters, no proper noun,
					makes less sense.)

There are river nymphs and tree nymphs and mountain nymphs, so there can
be nymphs of the aforementioned incipent flowers, right?  Sense is a matter
of opinion, so you can move the bud around or turn it into another imperative
verb rather than a noun-as-adjective:

Waltz, nymph, bud, for quick jigs vex.  (7 words, 28 letters, no proper noun,
					 sense is dubious.)
[We've all heard of budding youth, right?]

Waltz, nymph, for quick bud jigs vex.  (7 words, 28 letters, no proper noun,
					sense is dubious.)
[Yeah, we've all learned to dance a merry jig that looks like one of those
infamous incipient flowers.]

Dub waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex.  (7 words, 28 letters, no proper noun,
					came up with this on the spot and
					actually it looks pretty good!)
[The idea being that a nymph, being in control of the soundtrack for a TV
sitcom, has to change the music to which a grandmother is listening, from
something from Ireland to something from Strauss.]

    -- Stephen Joseph Smith <sjsmith@cs.umd.edu>

It is fairly straightforward, if time-consuming, to search for minimal
pangrams given a suitable lexicon, and the enclosed program does this. 
The run time is of the order of 20 MIPS-days if fed `Official Scrabble
Words', a document nominally listing all sufficiently short words
playable in tournament Scrabble in Britain.

I also enclose a lexicon which will reproduce the OSW results much more
quickly.

The results are dominated by onomatopoeic interjections (`pst', `sh',
etc.), and words borrowed from Welsh (`cwm', `crwth') and Arabic (`qat',
`suq').  Other lexicons will contain a very different leavening of such
words, and yield a very different set of pangrams.

Readers are invited to form sentences (or, less challenging, newspaper
headlines) from these pangrams.  Few are amenable to this sort of thing. 

    -- Steve Thomas

-----cut-----here-----
#include <stdio.h>
#include <ctype.h>

extern void *malloc ();
extern void *realloc ();

long getword ();

#define MAXWORD 26
int list[MAXWORD];
int lp;

struct list {
	struct list *next;
	char *word;
};

struct word {
	long mask;
	struct list *list;
} *w;
int wp;
int wsize;

char wordbuf[BUFSIZ];

char *letters = "qxjzvwfkbyhpmgcdultnoriase";

int cmp (ap, bp)
struct word *ap, *bp;
{
	char *p;
	long a = ap->mask, b = bp->mask;

	for (p = letters; *p; p++)
	{
		long m = 1L << (*p - 'a');

		if ((a & m) != (b & m))
			if ((a & m) != 0)
				return -1;
			else
				return 1;
	}
	return 0;
}

void *
newmem (p, size)
void *p;
int size;
{
	if (p)
		p = realloc (p, size);
	else
		p = malloc (size);
	if (p == NULL) {
		fprintf (stderr, "Out of memory\n");
		exit (1);
	}
	return p;
}

char *
dupstr (s)
char *s;
{
	char *p = newmem ((void *)NULL, strlen (s) + 1);

	strcpy (p, s);
	return p;
}

main (argc, argv)
int argc;
char **argv;
{
	long m;
	int i, j;

	while ((m = getword (stdin)) != 0)
	{
		if (wp >= wsize)
		{
			wsize += 1000;
			w = newmem (w, wsize * sizeof (struct word));
		}
		w[wp].mask = m;
		w[wp].list = newmem ((void *)NULL, sizeof (struct list));
		w[wp].list->word = dupstr (wordbuf);
		w[wp].list->next = (struct list *)NULL;
		wp++;
	}
	qsort (w, wp, sizeof (struct word), cmp);
	for (i = 1, j = 1; j < wp; j++)
	{
		if (w[j].mask == w[i - 1].mask) {
			w[j].list->next = w[i - 1].list;
			w[i - 1].list = w[j].list;
		} else
			w[i++] = w[j];
	}
	wp = i;
	pangram (0L, 0, letters);
	exit (0);
}

pangram (sofar, min, lets)
long sofar;
int min;
char *lets;
{
	register int i;
	register long must;

	if (sofar == 0x3ffffff) {
		print ();
		return;
	}
	for (; *lets; lets++)
		if ((sofar & (1 << (*lets - 'a'))) == 0)
			break;
	must = 1 << (*lets - 'a');
	for (i = min; i < wp; i++)
	{
		if (w[i].mask & sofar)
			continue;
		if ((w[i].mask & must) == 0)
			continue;
		list[lp++] = i;
		pangram (w[i].mask | sofar, i + 1, lets);
		--lp;
	}
}

long
getword (fp)
FILE *fp;
{
	long mask, m;
	char *p;
	char c;

	while (fgets (wordbuf, sizeof (wordbuf), fp) != NULL) {
		p = wordbuf;
		mask = 0L;
		while ((c = *p++) != '\0') {
			if (!islower (c))
				break;
			m = 1L << (c - 'a');
			if ((mask & m) != 0)
				break;
			mask |= m;
		}
		if (c == '\n')
			p[-1] = c = '\0';
		if (c == '\0' && mask)
			return mask;
	}
	return 0;
}

print ()
{
	int i;

	for (i = 0; i < lp; i++)
	{
		struct word *p = &w[list[i]];
		struct list *l;

		if (p->list->next == NULL)
			printf ("%s", p->list->word);
		else {
			printf ("(");
			for (l = p->list; l; l = l->next) {
				printf ("%s", l->word);
				if (l->next)
					printf (" ");
			}
			printf (")");
		}
		if (i != lp - 1)
			printf (" ");
	}
	printf ("\n");
	fflush (stdout);
}
-----and-----here-----
ankh
bad
bag
bald
balk
balks
band
bandh
bang
bank
bap
bard
barf
bark
bed
beds
beg
bend
benj
berk
berks
bez
bhang
bid
big
bight
bilk
bink
bird
birds
birk
bisk
biz
blad
blag
bland
blank
bled
blend
blight
blimp
blin
blind
blink
blintz
blip
blitz
block
blond
blunk
blunks
bod
bods
bog
bok
boks
bold
bond
bong
bonk
bonks
bop
bord
bords
bosk
box
brad
brank
bred
brink
brinks
brod
brods
brog
brogh
broghs
bud
bug
bugs
bulk
bulks
bump
bumps
bund
bunds
bung
bungs
bunk
bunks
burd
burds
burg
burgh
burghs
burk
burks
burp
busk
by
ch
crwth
cwm
cwms
dab
dag
dak
damp
dap
deb
debs
debt
deft
delf
delfs
delft
delph
delphs
depth
derv
dervs
dhak
dib
dig
dight
dink
dinks
dirk
disk
div
divs
dob
dobs
dog
dop
dorp
dowf
drab
draft
drib
dribs
drip
drop
drub
drubs
drunk
drunks
dub
dug
dugs
dung
dunk
dunks
dup
dusk
dwarf
dzo
dzos
fad
fag
falx
fank
fard
fax
fed
fend
fends
fenks
fez
fib
fid
fig
fight
fink
firk
fisk
fix
fiz
fjord
fjords
flab
flag
flak
flank
flap
flax
fled
fleg
flex
flight
flimp
flip
flisk
flix
flog
flogs
flong
flongs
flop
flops
flub
flump
flumps
flung
flunk
flux
fob
fobs
fog
fogs
fold
folds
folk
folks
fond
fonds
fop
fops
ford
fords
fork
forks
fox
frab
frank
frap
fremd
fright
friz
frog
frond
frump
frumps
fub
fud
fug
fugs
fund
funds
funk
funks
fy
fyrd
fyrds
gab
gad
gamb
gamp
gap
gawk
gawp
ged
geld
gib
gid
gif
gild
gink
gip
gju
gjus
gled
glib
glid
glift
glitz
glob
globs
glyph
glyphs
gob
god
gold
golf
golfs
golp
golps
gonk
gov
govs
gowd
gowf
gowfs
gowk
gowks
graft
graph
grub
grypt
gub
gubs
gulf
gulfs
gulp
gulph
gulphs
gunk
gup
gym
gymp
gyp
gyps
hadj
hank
hyp
hyps
jab
jag
jak
jamb
jap
jark
jerk
jerks
jib
jibs
jig
jimp
jink
jinks
jinx
jird
jirds
jiz
job
jobs
jog
jogs
jud
juds
jug
jugs
junk
junks
jynx
kang
kant
kaw
keb
kebs
ked
kef
kefs
keg
kelp
kemb
kemp
kep
kerb
kerbs
kerf
kerfs
kex
khan
khud
khuds
kid
kids
kif
kifs
kight
kild
kiln
kilp
kind
kinds
king
kip
klepht
knag
knight
knob
knobs
knub
knubs
kob
kobs
kond
kop
kops
kraft
krantz
kranz
kvetch
ky
kynd
kynds
lav
lev
lez
link
luz
lynx
mawk
nabk
nth
pad
park
pawk
pax
ped
peg
pegh
peghs
pelf
pelfs
penk
perk
perv
pervs
phang
phiz
phlox
pig
pight
pix
pleb
plebs
pled
plight
plink
plod
plongd
plonk
pluck
plug
plumb
plumbs
plunk
ply
pod
polk
polks
pong
pork
pox
poz
prex
prod
prof
prog
pst
pub
pud
pug
pugh
pulk
pulks
punk
pyx
qat
qats
qibla
qiblas
quark
quiz
sh
skelf
skid
skrump
skug
sphinx
spiv
squawk
st
sunk
suq
swiz
sylph
tank
thilk
tyg
vamp
van
vang
vant
veg
veld
velds
veldt
vend
vends
verb
verbs
vet
vex
vibs
vild
vint
vly
vox
vug
vugs
vuln
waltz
wank
welkt
whack
zag
zap
zarf
zax
zed
zek
zeks
zel
zig
zigs
zimb
zimbs
zing
zings
zip
zips
zit
zurf
zurfs

==> language/english/sentences/repeated.words.p <==
What is a sentence with the same word several times repeated?  Do not use
quotation marks, proper names, a language other than English, or anything
else distasteful.

==> language/english/sentences/repeated.words.s <==
Five "had"s in a row:

The parents were unable to conceive, so they hired someone else to
be a surrogate.

The parents had had a surrogate have their child.

The parents had had had their child.

The child had had no breakfast.

The child whose parents had had had had had no breakfast.

It is arguably possible to construct sentences with arbitrarily many
repetitions of a word.  For example:

1. Bulldogs fight
2. Bulldogs bulldogs fight fight.
    (i.e., bulldogs (that) bulldogs fight, (themselves) fight)
3. Bulldogs bulldogs bulldogs fight fight fight.
    (i.e., bulldogs (that) bulldogs (that) bulldogs fight, (themselves) fight,
    (themselves) fight)
...
n. etc.

==> language/english/sentences/sentence.p <==
Find a sentence with words beginning with the letters of the alphabet, in order.

==> language/english/sentences/sentence.s <==
After boxes containing dynamite exploded furiously, generating hellish
inferno jet killing laboring miners, novice operator, paralyzed,
quickly refuses surgical treatment until veteran workers x-ray youth
zealously.

A big cuddly dog emitted fierce growls, happily ignoring joyful kids
licking minute nuts on pretty queer rotten smelly toadstools underneath
vampires who x-rayed young zombies.

==> language/english/sentences/snowball.p <==
Construct the longest coherent sentence you can such that the nth word
is n letters long.

==> language/english/sentences/snowball.s <==
I
do
not
know
where
family
doctors
acquired
illegibly
perplexing
handwriting;
nevertheless,
extraordinary
pharmaceutical
intellectuality,
counterbalancing
indecipherability,
transcendentalizes
intercommunications'
incomprehensibleness.

If you add the condition that the letters in each word must be in
inverse alphabetic order, you have:

A
zo
fed
upon
solid
toffee
zyxomma.


==> language/english/sentences/weird.p <==
Make a sentence containing only words that violate the "i before e" rule.

==> language/english/sentences/weird.s <==
From the May, 1990 _Word Ways_:

That is IE - Or, Is That EI?

by Paul Leopold
Stockholm, Sweden

    "Seeing wherein neither weirdly-veiled sovereign deigned
    agreeing, their feisty heirs, leisurely eyeing eight heinous
    deity-freightened reindeer sleighs, counterfeited spontaneity,
    freeing rein (reveille, neighing!); forfeited obeisance,
    fleeing neighborhood.  Kaleidoscopically-veined foreign
    heights being seized, either reigned, sleight surfeited,
    therein; reinvented skein-dyeing; reiteratedly inveighed,
    feigning weighty seismological reinforcement."

The above passage appears in a book on the ecological conservation
measures of the enlightened plutocracies of antiquity, Ancient
Financier Aristocracies' Conscientious Scientific Species Policies,
by Creighton Leigh Peirce and Keith Leiceister Reid. . . .

Any beings decreeing such ogreish, albeit nonpareil,
homogeneity must be nucleic protein-deficient from sauteing
pharmacopoeial caffeine and codeine!

From an 'fgrep cie /usr/dict/words', with similiar words removed.
ancient coefficient concierge conscience conscientious deficient efficient
financier glacier hacienda Muncie omniscient proficient science
Societe(?) society species sufficient

A search through Webster's on-line dictionary produced the following exceptions:

Word: *cie*
Possible matches are:
  1. -facient               2. abortifacient          3. ancien regime         
  4. ancient                5. ancientry              6. boccie                
  7. cenospecies            8. christian science      9. coefficient           
 10. concierge             11. conscience            12. conscience money      
 13. conscientious         14. conscientious objector15. deficiency            
 16. deficiency disease    17. deficient             18. domestic science      
 19. earth science         20. ecospecies            21. efficiency            
 22. efficiency engineer   23. efficient             24. facies                
 25. fancier               26. financier             27. genospecies           
 28. geoscience            29. glacier               30. glacier theory        
 31. habeas corpus ad subjiciendum32. hacienda       33. inconscient
 34. inefficiency          35. inefficient           36. insufficience         
 37. insufficiency         38. insufficient          39. international scientific vocabulary
 40. library science       41. liquefacient          42. mental deficiency     
 43. mutafacient           44. natural science       45. nescience             
 46. omniscience           47. omniscient            48. physical science      
 49. political science     50. precieux              51. prescience            
 52. prescientific         53. prima facie           54. proficiency           
 55. proficient            56. pseudoscience         57. rubefacient           
 58. science               59. science fiction       60. scient                
 61. sciential             62. scientific            63. scientific method     
 64. scientism             65. scientist             66. scientistic           
 67. secret society        68. self-sufficiency      69. self-sufficient       
 70. social science        71. social scientist      72. societal              
 73. society               74. society verse         75. somnifacient          
 76. specie                77. species               78. stupefacient          
 79. sub specie aeternitatis80. subspecies            81. sufficiency           
 82. sufficient            83. sufficient condition  84. superficies           
 85. type species          86. unscientific          87. valenciennes          
 88. vers de societe       

==> language/english/sentences/word.boundaries.p <==
List some sentences that can be radically altered by changing word boundaries
and punctuation.

==> language/english/sentences/word.boundaries.s <==
Issues topping our mail: manslaughter.
Is Sue stopping our mailman's laughter?

The real ways I saw it.
There always is a wit.

You read evil tomes, Tim, at Ed's issue.
"You're a devil, Tom!" estimated sis Sue.

==> language/english/spelling/gry.p <==
Find three completely different words ending in "gry."

==> language/english/spelling/gry.s <==
Aside from "angry" and "hungry" and words derived therefrom, there is
only one word ending with "-gry" in Webster's Third Unabridged: "aggry."
However, this word is defective in that it is part of a phrase "aggry beads."
The OED's usage examples all talk about "aggry beads."

Moving to older dictionaries, we find that "gry" itself is a word in Webster's
Second Unabridged (and the OED):

gry, n. [L. gry, a trifle; Gr. gry, a grunt]
   1. a measure equal to one-tenth of a line. [Obs.] (Obs. = obsolete)
   2. anything very small. [Rare.]

This is a list of 100 words, phrases and names ending in "gry":
[Explanation of references is given at the end of the list.]

aggry [OED:1:182; W2; W3]
Agry Dagh (Mount Agry) [EB11]
ahungry [OED:1:194; FW; W2]
angry [OED; FW; W2; W3]
anhungry [OED:1:332; W2]
Badagry [Johnston; EB11]
Ballingry [Bartholomew:40; CLG:151; RD:164, pl.49]
begry [OED:1:770,767]
bewgry [OED:1:1160]
bowgry [OED:1:1160]
braggry [OED:1:1047]
Bugry [TIG]
Chockpugry [Worcester]
Cogry [BBC]
cony-gry [OED:2:956]
conyngry [OED:2:956]
Croftangry [DFC, as "Chrystal Croftangry"]
dog-hungry [W2]
Dshagry [Stieler]
Dzagry [Andree]
eard-hungry [CED (see "yird"); CSD]
Echanuggry [Century:103-104, on inset map, Key 104 M 2]
Egry [France; TIG]
ever-angry [W2]
fire-angry [W2]
Gagry [EB11]
gry (from Latin _gry_) [OED:4/2:475; W2]
gry (from Romany _grai_) [W2]
haegry [EDD (see "hagery")]
half-angry [W2]
hangry [OED:1:329]
heart-angry [W2]
heart-hungry [W2]
higry pigry [OED:5/1:285]
hogry [EDD (see "huggerie"); CSD]
hogrymogry [EDD (see "huggerie"); CSD (as "hogry-mogry")]
hongry [OED:5/1:459; EDD:3:282]
huggrymuggry [EDD (see "huggerie"); CSD (as "huggry-muggry")]
hungry [OED; FW; W2; W3]
Hungry Bungry [Daily Illini, in ad for The Giraffe, Spring 1976]
iggry [OED]
Jagry [EB11]
kaingry [EDD (see "caingy")]
land-hungry [OED; W2]
leather-hungry [OED]
Langry [TIG; Times]
Lisnagry [Bartholomew:489]
MacLoingry [Phillips (as "Flaithbhertach MacLoingry")]
mad-angry [OED:6/2:14]
mad-hungry [OED:6/2:14]
magry [OED:6/2:36, 6/2:247-48]
malgry [OED:6/2:247]
man-hungry [OED]
Margry [Indians (see "Pierre Margry" in bibliog., v.2, p.1204)]
maugry [OED:6/2:247-48]
mawgry [OED:6/2:247]
meagry [OED:6/2:267]
meat-hungry [W2]
menagry [OED (see "managery")]
messagry [OED]
nangry [OED]
overangry [RH1; RH2]
Pelegry [CE (in main index as "Raymond de Pelegry")]
Pingry [Bio-Base; HPS:293-94, 120-21]
podagry [OED; W2 (below the line)]
Pongry [Andree (Supplement, p.572)]
pottingry [OED:7/2:1195; Jamieson:3:532]
puggry [OED:8/1:1573; FW; W2]
pugry [OED:8/1:1574]
rungry [EDD:5:188]
scavengry [OED (in 1715 quote under "scavengery")]
Schtschigry [LG/1:2045; OSN:97]
Seagry [TIG; EB11]
Segry [Johnston; Andree]
self-angry [W2]
self-hungry ?
Shchigry [CLG:1747; Johnson:594; OSN:97,206; Times:185,pl.45]
shiggry [EDD]
Shtchigry [LG/1:2045; LG/2:1701]
Shtshigry [Lipp]
skugry [OED:9/2:156, 9/1:297; Jamieson:4:266]
Sygry [Andree]
Tangry [France]
Tchangry [Johnson:594; LG/1:435,1117]
Tchigry [Johnson:594]
tear-angry [W2]
tike-hungry [CSD]
Tingry [France; EB11 (under "Princesse de Tingry")]
toggry [Simmonds (as "Toggry", but all entries are capitalized)]
ulgry [Partridge; Smith:24-25]
unangry [OED; W2]
vergry [OED:12/1:123]
Virgy [CLG:2090]
Wirgy [CLG:2090; NAP:xxxix; Times:220, pl.62; WA:948]
wind-angry.
wind-hungry [W2]
yeard-hungry [CED (see "yird")]
yerd-hungry [CED (see "yird"); OED]
yird-hungry [CED (see "yird")]
Ymagry [OED:1:1009 (col. 3, 1st "boss" verb), (variant of "imagery")]

This list was gathered from the following articles:

George H. Scheetz, In Goodly Gree: With Goodwill, Word Ways 22:195 (Nov. 1989)
Murray R. Pearce, Who's Flaithbhertach MacLoingry?, Word Ways 23:6 (Feb. 1990)
Harry B. Partridge, Gypsy Hobby Gry, Word Ways 23:9 (Feb. 1990)
A. Ross Eckler, -Gry Words in the OED, Word Ways 25:4 (Nov. 1992)

References:
(Many references are of the form [Source:volume:page] or [Source:page].)

Andree, Richard. Andrees Handatlas (index volume). 1925.
Bartholomew, John. Gazetteer of the British Isles: Statistical and
	Topographical. 1887.
BBC = BBC Pronouncing Dictionary of English Names.
Bio-Base. (Microfiche) Detroit: Gale Research Company. 1980.
CE = Catholic Encyclopedia. 1907.
CED = Chambers English Dictionary. 1988.
Century = "India, Northern Part." The Century Atlas of the World. 1897, 1898.
CLG = The Colombia Lippincott Gazetteer of the World. L.E.Seltzer, ed. 1952.
CSD = Chambers Scots Dictionary. 1971 reprint of 1911 edition.
Daily Illini (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).
DFC = Dictionary of Fictional Characters. 1963.
EB11 = Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed.
EDD = The English Dialect Dictionary. Joseph Wright, ed. 1898.
France = Map Index of France. G.H.Q. American Expeditionary Forces. 1918.
FW = Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary of the English Language. 1943.
HPS = The Handbook of Private Schools: An Annual Descriptive Survey of
	Independent Education, 66th ed. 1985.
Indians = Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico. F. W. Hodge. 1912.
Jamieson, John. An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language. 1879-87.
Johnston, Keith. Index Geographicus... 1864.
LG/1 = Lippincott's Gazetteer of the World: A Complete Pronouncing Gazetteer
	or Geographical Dictionary of the World. 1888.
LG/2 = Lippincott's New Gazetteer: ... 1906.
Lipp = Lippincott's Pronouncing Gazetteer of the World. 1861, undated
	edition from late 1800's; 1902.
NAP = Narodowy Atlas Polski. 1973-1978 [Polish language]
OED = The Oxford English Dictionary. 1933. [Form: OED:volume/part number if
	applicable:page]
OSN: U.S.S.R. Volume 6, S-T. Official Standard Names Approved by the United
	States Board on Geographic Names. Gazetteer #42, 2nd ed. June 1970.
Partridge, Harry B. "Ad Memoriam Demetrii." Word Ways, 19 (Aug. 1986): 131.
Phillips, Lawrence. Dictionary of Biographical Reference. 1889.
RD = The Reader's Digest Complete Atlas of the British Isles, 1st ed. 1965.
RH1 = Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged. 1966.
RH2 = Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition
	Unabridged. 1987.
Simmonds, P.L. Commercial Dictionary of Trade Products. 1883.
Smith, John. The True Travels, Adventvres and Observations: London 1630.
Stieler, Adolph. Stieler's Handatlas (index volume). 1925.
TIG = The Times Index-Gazetteer of the World. 1965.
Times = The Times Atlas of the World, 7th ed. 1985.
W2 = Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language,
	Second Edition, Unabridged. 1934.
W3 = Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language,
	Unabridged. 1961.
WA = The World Atlas: Index-Gazetteer. Council of Ministires of the USSR, 1968.
Worcester, J.E. Universal Gazetteer, Second Edition. 1823.

Some words containing "gry" that do not end with "gry": agrypnia,
agrypnotic, Gryllidae, gryllid, gryllus, Gryllus, grylloblattid, 
Gryllotalpa, gryllos, grypanian, Gryphaea, Gryll, Gryphaea, gryposis,
grysbok, gryphon, Gryphosaurus, Grypotherium, grysbuck.  Most of these 
are in Webster's Second also with one from Webster's Third Edition and
one from the Random House Dictionary, Second Edition Unabridged.

==> language/english/spelling/j.ending.p <==
What words and names end in j?

==> language/english/spelling/j.ending.s <==
Following is a compilation of words ending in j from various
dictionaries.  Capitalized words and words marked as foreign
are included, but to keep the list to a managable size,
personal and place names are excluded.


aflaj	 plural of falaj (Cham)
benj	 variant of bhang - hemp plant (NI2)
bhimraj	 the rachet-tailed drongo (F&W)
Bhumij	 branch of Munda tribes in India (NI3)
Chuj	 a people of Northwestern Guatemala (NI3)
esraj	 an Indian musical instrument with 3 or 4 strings (OED2)
falaj    a water channel as part of the ancient irrigation
	 system of Oman (Cham)
Funj	 variant of Fung - a people dominant in Sennar (NI3)
gaj	 Omanese coin (NI2)
genj	 a common type of cotton cloth in Sudan (F&W)
gunj	 a grannery in India (NI2)
hadj	 variant of hajj (NI3)
haj	 variant of hajj (NI3)
hajilij	 the bito - a small scrubby tree that grows in dry
	 parts of Africa and Asia (NI2)
hajj	 pilgimage to Mecca (NI3)
hij	 obsolete form of hie or high (OED2)
Jubaraj	 variant of Yuvaraja - the male heir to an Indian 
	 pricipality (OED2)
kaleej	 variant of kalij (NI3)
kalij	 any of several crested Indian pheasants (NI3)
kankrej	 guzerat - a breed of Indian cattle (NI3)
kharaj	 a tax on unbelievers (NI2)
Khawarij plural of Kharijite - a member of the oldest 
	 religious sect of Islam (NI3)
khiraj	 variant of kharaj (NI2)
kilij	 a Turkish saber with a crescent shaped blade (RHD)
kurunj	 variant of kurung - the Indian beech (NI2)
Maharaj	 variant of Maharaja - East Indian prince (OED2)
munj	 a tough Asiatic grass (NI3)
naranj	 Maldive Island name for mancala - an Arabian board
	 game (CD)
pakhawaj a doubleheaded drum used in Indian music (OED2)
raj	 rule (NI3)
saj	 the Indian laurel (NI2)
samaj	 Hindu religious society (NI3)
sohmaj	 variant of samaj (NI2)
somaj	 variant of samaj (NI2)
svaraj	 variant of swaraj (F&W)
swaraj	 local self-government in India (NI3)
taj	 a tall conical cap worn by Moslems (NI3)
tedj	 variant of tej (OED2)
tej	 Ethiopian mead (OED2)
Viraj	 in Hindu Mythology, the mysterious primeval being
	 when differentiating itself into male and female (F&W)
Yuvaraj	 same as Jubaraj (OED2)
Yuveraj	 same as Jubaraj (OED2)
Yuvraj	 same as Jubaraj (OED2)
zij	 Persian astronomical tables (F&W)

This list is almost certainly not complete.  For example, on
page 187 of Beyond Language, Dmitri Borgmann has "Udruj" in a
word list.  What reference he dug this word out of is unknown;
the combined efforts of the NPL electronic mailing list could
not produce the source of this word.  So additions to this list
will be welcomed by the author.


REFERENCES

CD - The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, 1911
Cham - Chambers English Dictionary, 1988
F&W - Funk & Wagnall's New Standard Dictionary of the English
      Language, 1941
NI2 - Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition,
      1942
NI3 - Webster's Third New International Dictionary, 1981
OED2 - Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, 1989
RHD - Random House Dictionary of the English Language, 1966

---
Dan Tilque	--	dant@logos.WR.TEK.COM

==> language/english/spelling/lipograms.p <==
What books have been written without specific letters, vowels, etc.?

==> language/english/spelling/lipograms.s <==
Such a book is called a lipogram.

A novel-length example in English (omitting e) exists, titled _Gadsby_.

Georges Perec wrote a French novel titled _La Disparition_ which does
not contain the letter 'e',  except in a few bits of text that the
publisher had to include in or on the book somewhere -- such as the
author's name :-).  But these were all printed in red, making them
somehow ``not count''.

Perec also wrote another novel in which `e' was the only vowel.

In _La Disparition_, unlike _Gadsby_, the lipogrammatic
technique is reflected in the story.  Objects disappear or become
invisible.  We know, however, more or less why the characters can't
find things like eggs or even remember their names -- because the
words for them can't be used.

Amazingly, it's been ``translated'' into English (by Harry Mathews, I
think).

Another work which manages to [almost] adhere to restrictive
alphabetic rules while also remaining readable as well as providing
amusement and literary satisfaction (though you have to like
disjointed fiction) is _Alphabetical Africa_ by Walter Abish.  The
rules (which of course he doesn't explain, you can't help noticing
most of them) have to do with initial letters of words.  There are 52
chapters.  In the first, all words begin with `a'; in the second, all
words begin with either `a' or `b'; etc, until all words are allowed
in chapter 26.  Then in the second half, the letters are taken away
one by one.  It's remarkable when, for instance, you finally get `the'
and realize how much or little you missed it; earlier, when `I' comes
in, you feel something like the difference between third- and
first-person narration.  As one of the blurbs more or less says (I
don't have it here to quote), reading this is like slowly taking a
deep breath and letting it out again.

----
Mitch Marks  mitchell@cs.uchicago.edu

==> language/english/spelling/longest.p <==
What is the longest word in the English language?

==> language/english/spelling/longest.s <==
The longest word to occur in both English and American "authoritative"
unabridged dictionaries is "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis."

The following is a brief citation history of this "word."

New York Herald Tribune, February 23, 1935, p. 3
"Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis succeeded
electrophotomicrographically as the longest word in the English
language recognized by the National Puzzlers' League at the opening
session of the organization's 103d semi-annual meeting held yesterday
at the Hotel New Yorker.

The puzzlers explained that the forty-five-letter word is the name of a
special form of silicosis caused by ultra-microscopic particles of
siliceous volcanic dust."

Everett M. Smith (b. 1/1/1894), President of NPL and Radio News Editor
of the Christian Science Monitor, cited the word at the convention.
Smith was also President of the Yankee Puzzlers of Boston.
It is not known whether Smith coined the word.

"Bedside Manna. The Third Fun in Bed Book.", edited by Frank Scully,
Simon and Schuster, New York, 1936, p. 87
"There's been a revival in interest in spelling, but Greg Hartswick,
the cross word king and world's champion speller, is still in control
of the situation.  He'd never get any competition from us, that's
sure, though pronouncing, let alone spelling, a 44 letter word like:
        Pneumonoultramicrosopicsilicovolkanakoniosis,
a disease caused by ultra-microscopic particles of sandy volcanic dust
might give even him laryngitis."

It is likely that Scully, who resided in New York in February 1935,
read the Herald Tribune article and slightly misremembered the word.

Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary, 1936
Both "-coniosis" and "-koniosis" are cited.
"a factitious word alleged to mean 'a lung disease caused by the inhalation
of very fine silica dust' but occurring chiefly as an instance of a very long
word."

Webster's first cite is "-koniosis" in the addendum to the Second Edition.
The Third Edition changes the "-koniosis" to "-coniosis."

I conjecture that this "word" was coined by word puzzlers, who then
worked assiduously to get it into the major unabridged dictionaries
(perhaps with a wink from the editors?)  to put an end to the endless
squabbling about what is the longest word.

==> language/english/spelling/most.p <==
What word has the most variant spellings?

==> language/english/spelling/most.s <==
catercorner

There's eight spellings in Webster's Third.

catercorner
cater-cornered
catacorner
cata-cornered
catty-corner
catty-cornered
kitty-corner
kitty-cornered

If you look in Random House, you will find one more which doesn't appear
in Web3, but it only differs by a hyphen:

cater-corner

---
Dan Tilque    --     dant@techbook.com

==> language/english/spelling/near.palindrome.p <==
What are some long near palindromes, i.e., words that except for one
letter would be palindromes?

==> language/english/spelling/near.palindrome.s <==
Here are the longest near palindromes in Webster's Ninth Collegiate:
catalatic		footstool		red pepper
detonated		locofocos		red spider
dew-clawed		nabataean		retreater
eisegesis		possessor		stargrass
foolproof		ratemeter		webmember

==> language/english/spelling/operations.on.words/deletion.p <==
What exceptional words turn into other words by deletion of letters?

==> language/english/spelling/operations.on.words/deletion.s <==
   longest beheadable word  P(REDETERMINATION) (16/15)
    longest for each letter (6-88,181,198,213,13-159,14-219,15-155,16-96,220,
     17-85) APATHETICALLY, BLITHESOME, CHASTENING, DEMULSIFICATION,
     EMOTIONLESSNESS, FUTILITARIANISM, GASTRONOMICALLY, HEDRIOPHTHALMA,
     IDENTIFICATION, JUNCTIONAL, KINAESTHETIC, LIMITABLENESS, METHYLACETYLENE,
     NEOPALEOZOIC, OENANTHALDEHYDE, PREDETERMINATION, QUINTA, REVOLUTIONARILY,
     SELECTIVENESS, TREASONABLENESS, UPRAISER, VINDICATION, WHENCEFORWARD,
     XANTHOPHYLLITE, YOURSELVES, ZOOSPORIFEROUS
    longest beheadable down to a single letter  PRESTATE (8)
   longest curtailable word (not a plural)  (COUNTERMAN)D, (UNDERCOVER)T (11)
    longest curtailable down to a single letter  LAMBASTES
   longest alternately beheadable and curtailable word  ASHAMED (7)
   longest arbitrarily beheadable and curtailable (all subsequences words)
     SHADES (6)
   longest terminal ellision word  D(EPILATION)S (11)
   longest letter subtraction down to a single letter  STRANGLING,
    STRANGING, STANGING, STAGING, SAGING, AGING, GING, GIN, IN, I 
   longest charitable word (subtract letter anywhere) 
    PLEATS: LEATS,PEATS,PLATS,PLEAS,PLEAT 
   shortest stingy word (no deletion possible)  PRY (3)
****
Unless noted otherwise, all words occur in Webster's Third New International
Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Springfield, MA, 1961.

==> language/english/spelling/operations.on.words/insertion.and.deletion.p <==
What exceptional words turn into other words by both insertion and 
deletion of letters?

==> language/english/spelling/operations.on.words/insertion.and.deletion.s <==
   longest word both charitable and hospitable 
    AMY: AM,AY,MY;GAMY,ARMY,AMOY,AMYL 
   shortest word both stingy and hostile  IMPETUOUS (9)
****
Unless noted otherwise, all words occur in Webster's Third New International
Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Springfield, MA, 1961.

==> language/english/spelling/operations.on.words/insertion.p <==
What exceptional words turn into other words by insertion of letters?

==> language/english/spelling/operations.on.words/insertion.s <==
   longest hydration (double reheadment)  (D,R)EVOLUTIONIST (12/13)
   longest hospitable word (insert letter anywhere) 
    CARES: SCARES, CHARES, CADRES, CARIES, CARETS, CARESS 
   shortest hostile word (no deletion possible)  SYZYGY (6)
****
Unless noted otherwise, all words occur in Webster's Third New International
Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Springfield, MA, 1961.

==> language/english/spelling/operations.on.words/movement.p <==
What exceptional words turn into other words by movement of letters?

==> language/english/spelling/operations.on.words/movement.s <==
   longest word allowing exchange of letters (metallege) 
    CONSERVATIONAL, CONVERSATIONAL 
   longest head-to-tail shift 
    SPECULATION, PECULATIONS 
   longest double head-to-tail shift 
    STABLE-TABLES-ABLEST 
   longest complete cyclic transposal  ATE-TEA-EAT (3)
****
Unless noted otherwise, all words occur in Webster's Third New International
Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Springfield, MA, 1961.

==> language/english/spelling/operations.on.words/substitution.p <==
What exceptional words turn into other words by substitution of letters?

==> language/english/spelling/operations.on.words/substitution.s <==
longest onalosi (substitution in every position possible) 
 PASTERS: MASTERS,POSTERS,PALTERS,PASSERS,PASTORS,PASTELS,PASTERN 	
shortest isolano (no substitution possible) 
 ECRU 
longest word, all letters changed to other letters in minimum number of
steps, yielding another word  THUMBING-THUMPING-TRUMPING-TRAMPING-
 TRAPPING-CRAPPING-CRAPPIES-CRAPPOES 
longest word girders  BADGER/SUNLIT, BUDLET/SANGIR (6)
longest word with full vowel substitution 
 CL(A,E,I,O,U)CKING (8) also Y D(A,E,I,O,U,Y)NE (4) 
longest words with vowel substitutions
 DESTRUCTIBILITIES, DISTRACTIBILITIES (17)
longest word constant-letter-shifted to another PRIMERO-SULPHUR (7)
 arithmetical-letter-shifted DREAM-ETHER (5)
 constant-shift-with-transposal (shiftgrams) AEROPHANE-SILVERITE (9)
longest word pair shifted one position on typewriter keyboard WAXIER-ESCORT (6)
longest word pair confusable on a telephone keypad AMOUNTS-CONTOUR (7)
****
Unless noted otherwise, all words occur in Webster's Third New International
Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, Springfield, MA, 1961.