S. Crabble's Word Games

This site was created to raise the bar on words and their usage. I, Noah S. Crabble, intend to adhere to that concept.



Welcome to S. Crabble's Word Games.

I will not be disingenuous and subjugate the readers or myself to the mundane and otherwise common word. To the contrary, I will deal with those words having curious qualities and characteristics that may be unfamiliar to most. The reader, heretofore known as a student shall be, dare I say, educated.

CONSTIPATED WORDS

Constipated words, that is to say words without normal vowel movement, are those words that do not contain the standard vowels: a,e,i,o and u. There are a number of words in the English language that incorporate the letter y to serve as a vowel. Some of these words are either archaic or rarely used, but can be found in some dictionaries.

Longest English words not containing vowels:

twyndyllyngs -(12 letters) is a 15th century English spelling of twinlings, which means in modern English, twins.
~~~Other words containing none of the standard vowels include: twyndyllyng - (11 letters); symphysy - (8); gypsyfy, gypsyry, nymphly and rhythms - (7); and then there is a certain wasp, zyzzyx and an alignment of planets, syzygy both with (6) letters.
~~~The shortest one syllable word (8 letters)in the English language with 6 consecutive consonants is borschts. The longest one syllable word in the English language,strengths, contains 8 consonants.
~~~The "Holy Grail" of words for a Scrabble player is zyzzyva, a three-syllable word with 6 consecutive consonants, which is a type of weevil.

DIARRHEIC WORDS

Diarrheic words are the opposite of constipated words, in that you might say they have the runs when it comes to vowel movement. These words have few or no consonants, but more than make up for that deficiency with their displays of vowels.

Defined as the cadence in midieval music, euouae is only found in dictionaries which feature archaic or obsolete words. This word has the distinction of being both the longest word containing only vowels, but also the word containing the most consecutive vowels (6). Two common words contain 5 consecutive vowels: cooeeing and queueing.
~~~facetious with 9 letters, is the shortest common English word in which all of the vowels appear in alphabetical order. Changing the word into an adverb by adding the suffix "ly," forms an 11-letter word in which the "y" is used as a vowel; thus the complete alphabetical sequence "a-e-i-o-u-y." abstemiously, with 12 letters is the longest such word. adventitiously and sacrilegiously each have 14 letters, but the letter "i" is repeated.

SEEING DOUBLE

Let us now take a little time out for a short quiz. Can you think of at least one common word containing the following double vowels:

1) - "aa"__________
2) - "ee"__________
3) - "ii" __________
4) - "oo"__________
5) - "uu"__________

(Proper names are not allowed. My answers will appear in the comments section of this post.)
While the word bookkeeper has three consecutive sets of double letters, the lesser known subbookkeeper does it one better with four.

ALPHA_OMEGA

A common word, crabcake, and less common words such as abcaree, abchalaz, abcoulomb, and drabcloth are the only words to contain the letter sequence "abc."
~~~hydroxyzine is only word containing "xyz."

That brings us to the last lesson of the day!

SWITCH HITTERS

conservationalists and conversationalists with 18 letters are the longest non-scientific English words that are anagrams of each other.
~~~Earth (heart) and Mars (rams) are the only planets to have anagrams.
~~~Monday (dynamo) is the only day of the week with an anagram.
~~~The only months with anagrams are: March (charm), April (ripal) and May (yam).

Okay, class is dismissed. Be sure to study.

NO.65