3.10.07

stumble xkcd

FROM http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words15.html (and all the pages at the bottom)
Philippi may be the longest Biblical word with all long letters [Byron Davidson].

FROM http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words7.html
UU occurs in carduus, continuum, duumvir, duumviral, duumvirate, Equuleus (a constellation), Equus, ignis fatuus, individuum, in perpetuum, intermenstruum, kere perpetuum, lituus, menstruum, mutuum, muumuu, obliquus, perpetuum mobile, praecipuum, Puuc, residuum, sadalsuud, semicontinuum, Shuvuuia (a Mongolian dinosaur), Smectymnuus, squush(y), triduum, vacuum, weltanschauung, zuurveldt. The OED2 has bauude, bestuur, bustuus, couuienales, dyluuye, huus, inaniloquution, intervacuum, kouuuele, kuuant, neuu, paramenstruum, plentuuste, premenstruum, postmenstruum, pruu, puukko, quuik, quurt, riuulet, sleuuol, spuugslang, squuncke, suuel, suuen, suum, truu, tuum, uuen, ventriloquus, and yuu. Nuku pu’u is a group of very rare Hawaiian honeycreepers [Charles Turner, Philip Bennett]. Suuwassea emilieae is a newly-named dinosaur [Charles Turner].
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LLL. FRILLLESS (having no frill) is in the OED2 and WALLLESS is in W2 [Stuart Kidd]. At least two scientific papers refer to a WELLLESS microarray platform in the context of microarray experiments where the compounds to be tested are not segregated into wells [Jason Leith]. CHURCHILLLAAN (Churchill Lane) is the name of a street in Amsterdam and some other Dutch cites. SOLLLEISTUNG is not easily found in a German dictionary because it is attributed to Eastern Germany and probably not an official word. Its meaning is “the amount of work or exertion dictated in advance” [Oscar van Vlijmen]. STILLLEBEN is a German word for “still life.” Heinz Lueneburg provided this as an example of words with triple letters made possible by a recent spelling reform. He writes that triple letters occur only in compound words, as Still-leben, Schiff-fahrt, Fett-troepfchen. CHILLLOSS has been suggested, although it is not in any dictionary. Gary Rosenberg says SHELLLESS is “a word that I keep trying to slip into professional papers (I’m a malacologist by trade), but so far no editor has let it stand.”
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SSS. GODDESSSHIP is the only word in RHUD2 with a triple letter (this word is spelled goddess-ship in W3). The OED2 has BOSSSHIP, COUNTESSSHIP, DUCHESSSHIP, GOVERNESSSHIP, HOSTESSSHIP, and POSTMISTRESSSHIP. W2 has GODDESSSHIP, HEADMISTRESSSHIP, and PATRONESSSHIP. Shakespeare used HOSTESSSHIP in Act IV, scene iv of The Winter’s Tale. BRASSSMITH has been suggested, although it is not in any dictionary [Stuart Kidd]. The mathematician J. H. Conway has suggested the term UNLESSS meaning “precisely unless,” the opposite of IFF [Mark Brader].

FROM http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words1.html
ACCEDED, CABBAGE, BAGGAGE, DEFACED, EFFACED, DECEDED, DEEDEED, DEFADED, DEGAGEE, GEAGGED, and FEEDBAG are seven-letter words which can be played on a musical instrument. CABBAGED, DEBAGGED, and BAGGAGED are eight-letter words [Stuart Kidd, Philip Bennett].
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AEGILOPS (alternate spelling of egilops, an ulcer in a part of the eye) is apparently the longest word in W2 which consists of letters in alphabetical order. Aegilops is also also a genus of mollusc and a genus of grass [Charles Turner]. CHILLLOSS (the opposite of a heatloss) has its letters in alphabetical order, although this word may not be in any dictionary [Word Ways]. BEEFILY and BILLOWY are the longest such words in OSPD2+.
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The following words in the on-line Scrabble dictionary have symmetrically distributed letters: WIZARD, HOVELS, BEVY, GIRT, GRIT, IZAR, LEVO, TRIG, VOLE, WOLD, BY, LO, and SH [Mark D. Lew, Dan Tilque, Bruce D. Wilner]. There is also ZYBA (a town in Kansas), which was named by taking the last two letters and the first two letters of the alphabet [Don Blevins in Peculiar, Uncertain & Two Egg]. POLK is the only last name of a U. S. President with symmetrically distributed letters. “Symmetrically distributed letters” means that, for example, in BEVY the B and Y are equidistant from the center, as are E and V.
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ASTHMA begins and ends with a vowel and has no other vowels in between. Some less common words of six or more letters with this property are ISTHMI (alternate plural of isthmus), APHTHA (OSPD3), ELTCHI (SOWPODS), ORMSBY (name of several towns in the U. S.), ACHCHA (a S. Asian expression meaning “is that so”), ANDHRA (an Indian State), ANGSTY (adjective of angst), ORCHHA (an Indian State), ORPHNE (Greek nymph in Hades), ARCHLY, ICHTHY, and ARCHSPY. There are also these obsolete or obscure words from the OED2: ARMTHE, ERMTHE, ARCTLY, ARGHLY, ENGHLE, ESSSSE, ERSHRY, ERSTLY, IRSCHE, UNCKLE, USSCHA, and USSCHO [Mike Turniansky, Mark D. Lew, Stewart Kidd, Philip C. Bennett].
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Some two-syllable words which become one-syllable words by adding a letter or letters are: AGUE/PLAGUE, AGUE/VAGUE, AVE/CAVE, AVE/HAVE, RUGGED/SHRUGGED, AGED/RAGED, AGED/STAGED, BOA/BOAT, OLE,SOLE OLE/WHOLE, RAGGED/DRAGGED, NAKED/SNAKED, SOUR/SOURCE, WINGÉD/TWINGED [Stuart Kidd, Dan Tilque].
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Some common words which change from one to three syllables upon the addition of just one letter are: ARE/AREA, CAME/CAMEO, CRIME/CRIMEA, GAPE/AGAPE, HOSE/HOSEA, JUDE/JUDEA, LIEN/ALIEN, OLE/OLEO, RODE/RODEO, ROME/ROMEO, SMILE/SIMILE and WHINE/WAHINE. (Wahine is defined as a Polynesian woman or a female surfer in MWCD11.) There are numerous other examples involving more obscure words [Jim Lizzi, Stuart Kidd, Philip Bennett, Charles Turner].
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ANHUNGRY is one answer to the question, “What’s the other word besides ‘angry’ and ‘hungry’ that ends in ‘gry’?” This is the most frequently asked question of the editors of Merriam-Webster. Actually, “angry” and “hungry” are the only two words in common use ending in -gry, but quite a few obsolete or obscure words can be found in unabridged dictionaries. Among them are ANHUNGRY, used by Shakespeare, and AGGRY BEAD, both of which are in W3. The only -GRY words in RHUD2 are ANGRY, HUNGRY, HALF-ANGRY, OVERANGRY, and UNANGRY. Chambers has AGGRY (an adjective describing certain ancient West African beads) and AHUNGRY (oppressed with hunger). OSPD has PUGGRY (a variant form of the more usual PUGGAREE, a scarf wrapped around a sun helmet). The OED has angry, an-hungry, begry, conyngry, gry, higry pigry, hungry, iggry, meagry, menagry, nangry, podagry, skugry, unangry.
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The only countries in the world with one syllable in their names are CHAD, FRANCE, GREECE, LAOS (one pronunciation), and SPAIN. There is also WALES, although it is not an independent country [Philip Bennett].
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DABCHICK (a small bird) is among the very few words that contain ABC. Some others: ABCOULOMB, ABCHALAZAL, ABCAREE, CRABCAKE, DRABCLOTH, ABC SOIL, BABCOCK TEST, NABCHEAT, and ABCIXIMAB (a human-murine monoclonal antibody fragment that inhibits the aggregation of platelets) [Philip C. Bennett]. (In W3, ABC is a word, meaning “alphabet.”) Allowing intervening punctuation, there is SAB-CAT (a saboteur) in W2 and W3 [Susan Thorpe in WordsWorth]. Proper nouns include ABCOUDE (city in the Netherlands), ZABCIKVILLE (city in Texas), and ABCHASIA (a small breakaway republic on the Black Sea which is or was part of the Republic of Georgia). There are also B. abchasica, C. abchasicum, and H. abchasicus, all three of which are botanical names for Paeonia Plants found in the Caucasus [Philip Bennett, Charles Turner].
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DREAMT is the only common word in English ending in -MT. Others are the obscure adreamt, redreamt, undreamt, or daydreamt.
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The longest word consisting of only short letters is unceremoniousness, with 17 letters. A sixteen-letter word consisting of only short letters is overnumerousness. Some fifteen-letter words consisting of only short letters are overnervousness, acrimoniousness, carnivorousness, ceremoniousness, unconsciousness, and vermivorousness. Some fourteen-letter words consisting of only short letters are curvaceousness, nonconcurrence, avariciousness, censoriousness, mercuriousness, and omnivorousness. Note that most of these words can be lengthened by two letters by making them plural, adding -es. The OED2 has some other words of equal length but including hyphens; these have been excluded from this list. [Philip Bennett]

lighttight and lillypilly are the longest words consisting of only long letters. Some nine-letter words are flightily, highlight, and hillbilly.

gyp and gyppy (in OSW and OED2) consist only of letters with descenders.

Some words with only “up” letters are tikitiki (W2), libidibi (W2), dikdik, titbit, and tidbit. OED2 also has the obsolete biddikil and tittifill and the variant spelling hiddill.
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ESCALATOR is one of many words that were originally trademarks but have become ordinary words found in dictionaries. Some other words which were originally trademarks (or still are) are AQUA-LUNG, ASPIRIN, AUTOHARP, BAKELITE, BAND-AID, BREATHALYZER, BVD, CELLOPHANE, CELLULOID, CORNFLAKES, CUBE STEAK, DACRON, DEEPFREEZE, DICTAPHONE, DITTO, DRY ICE, DUMPSTER, FORMICA, FRISBEE, GRANOLA, GUNK, HEROIN, JACUZZI, JEEP, JELL-O, KEROSENE, KLEENEX, LANOLIN, MACE, MIMEOGRAPH, MOXIE, NOVOCAIN, PABLUM, PHILLIPS SCREW, PING-PONG, PLEXIGLAS, POGO STICK, POPSICLE, PYREX, Q-TIP, ROLLERBLADE, SCOTCH TAPE, SHEETROCK, STETSON HAT, STYROFOAM, TABLOID, TARMAC, THERMOS, TRAMPOLINE, VASELINE, VELCRO, WINDBREAKER, YO-YO, ZIPPER [Charles Turner and others]. In addition NYLON was coined by du Pont, although the term was never trademarked [Dan Tilque].
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EWE and YOU are pronounced exactly the same, yet share no letters in common. Other examples: EYE/I, OX/AUKS, OH/EAU (de cologne), A/EH, AWE/OR (Australian pronunciation), AYE/I, COUGH/KAF (kaf is a variant of kaph), QUAY/KI (a Polynesian palm), EYE/AI (three-toed sloth), FEE/PHI (Greek letter), KEY/CHI (Greek letter), OZ/AAHS, CEE/SI, HAUT/OWE, WAY/HUE (city in Vietnam), SHE/XI (a river in China) [Dan Tilque, Chris Hendricks, Stuart Kidd, Philip Bennett, Don Kersey, Dmitri Borgmann, Eric Brahinsky].

FROM http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words2.html
HIV VIRUS is an obvious redundancy, since the “v” stands for “virus.” Some other common redundancies which include an abbreviation are ATM MACHINE, SALT TALKS, START TALKS, VIN NUMBER, PIN NUMBER, AC CURRENT, DC CURRENT, ISBN NUMBER, DOS OPERATING SYSTEM, ABS BRAKING SYSTEM, DIMM MODULE (Dynamic Inline Memory Module), EFT TRANSFER (Electronic Funds Transfer), EMP PULSE (Electromagnetic Pulse), and MSDS SHEETS (Material Safety Data Sheet), DC COMICS (DC = Detective Comics) [Thomas Larson, Nate Roe, Charles Turner, Ana Perez, and others]. THE EL CAMINO HIGHWAY in California translates to “The the highway highway” [Bill Farrell]. Since iterate means “to repeat,” REITERATE could be considered a redundancy [Bill Farrell].
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ISPLAY (Liquid Crystal Display) has been suggested for this category, but Mark Brader says it is not a redundancy. He writes, “The first ‘display’ refers to an individual character (or similar component), the second to the whole array of these. The big display is made up of little displays.”

[The Cyber Stylebook of the San Antonio Express-News states that RIO GRANDE RIVER is a redundancy since Rio means "river." There are numerous similar place names such as Gobi and Sahara deserts, Fujiyama and Sierra mountains, La Brea Tar Pits, etc.; however, these are generally not considered redundancies because they involve two languages.]
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The earliest known appearance of the word HELLO in print is in a letter written by Thomas Edison dated August 15, 1877. In the letter, addressed to T. B. A. David, president of Central District and Printing Telegraph Company in Pittsburgh, Edison suggested that the word should be used to answer the telephone. HELLO is an alteration of the much older word HOLLO.

HYPoThAlAmICoHYPoPHYSeAlS is the longest word that can be spelled using chemical symbols. Other such words include NONRePReSeNTaTiONAlISmS, BrONCHOEsOPHAgOSCOPIEs, ThErMoPHOSPHOReSCeNCe, HYPSIBRaCHYCePHAlISm, HYPErPHOSPHOReSCeNCe, SUPErCoNdUCTiVITiEs, PARaPrOFeSSiONaLS, and SUPErSOPHISTiCAtE [Stuart Kidd]. IrReSPONSiBILiTiEs reuses no element’s symbol [Mike Keith]. PrAcTiCaLiTiEs may be the longest word using only two-letter abbreviations, or PaRaCrOsTiCs if no elements are repeated [Richard Sabey].

HYDROXYZINE (a prescription drug) is the only word in RHUD2, OED2, and W3 containing XYZ. Allowing scientific names in biology, there is XYZZORS (a nematode worm) [Stuart Kidd]. XYZAL (Levocetirizine) is a prescription drug introduced in England in 2001 [Dennis Miller].

The most commonly used words in spoken English are I, YOU, THE, and A.
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The most commonly used words in written English, according to the 1971 American Heritage Word Frequency Book are: the, of, and, a, to, in, is, you, that, it, he, for, was, on, are, as, with, his, they at, be, this, from, I, have, or, by, one, had, not, but, what, all, were, when, we there, can, an, your, which, their, said, if, do.

The most commonly occurring words in Shakespeare’s plays and poetry (with frequencies) are: the 29854, and 27554, I 23357, to 21075, of 18520, a 15523, you 14264, my 12964, that 11955, in 11842, is 9734, not 8871, with 8269, s 8160, for 8100, it 8080, me 8059, 7357 his, 7228 be, 7120 he. In Shakespeare, 8598 words (abaissiez, abash, abatements, abates, abbeys, …, zo, zodiac, zodiacs, zone, zwaggered) are used only once [Nelson H. F. Beebe].

The most commonly occurring sound in spoken English is the sound of a in alone, followed by e as in key, t as in top, and d as in dip [Stuart Kidd].
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The longest word with a horizontal line of symmetry is COCCIDIOCIDE [Paul Wright]. Some other words are: BEDECKED, BOOHOOED, CEBID (a type of monkey), CHECKBOOK, CHOICE, CODEBOOK, COOKBOOK, DECIDED, DIOXIDE, DOBCHICK, EXCEEDED, HIDE, HOODOOED, ICEBOX, KEBOBBED, OBOE, OKEECHOBEE, and OXOBOXO (a small lake in southeastern Connecticut, also a palindrome). [Dmitri Borgmann, Stuart Kidd]

Some words with a vertical line of symmetry are MOM, WOW, OTTO, MAAM, MA’AM, TOOT, AHA, AA, AHA, AIA, AMA, AVA, AWA, HAH, HOH, HUH, MAM, MIM, MM, MUM, OHO, OO, OXO, TAT, TIT, TOT, TUT, UTU, VAV, WAW.

All of the letters of these words have a vertical line of symmetry: AUTOMATA, AUTOTOMY, HIMATIA, HOITY-TOITY, HOMOTAXIA, MAHATMA, MAHIMAHI, MAMMATI, MAMMOTH, MATAMATA, MOTIVITY, MOUTH-TO-MOUTH, MYOMATA, MYXOMATA, OUTWAIT, TATOUAY, TAXIWAY, THATAWAY, TIMOTHY, TOMATO, TOWAWAY, WITHOUT, YAWATAHAMA (a city in Japan), and YOUTH.

Upper case BID is horizontally reflective while lower case bid is vertically reflective [Hugo Brandt Corstius].

SWIMS has 180-degree rotational symmetry. If written in lower-case cursive, chump comes very close to having 180-degree rotational symmetry [Mark D. Lew].
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All of the letters of these words have both horizontal and vertical lines of symmetry: HI, OH, IO, OHIO, OHO, and IHI’IHI (rare Hawaiian fern that now exists only in three populations, two of which are inside volcanoes) [Bruce D. Wilner, Dan Tilque, Mike Turniansky].

IFF is a word used in mathematics to mean “if and only if.” According to MWCD11, it can be pronounced three ways: “if and only if,” like “if,” and like “if” but with a prolonged “F.” There are 121 conjunctions in MWCD11; IFF is the only conjunction that is a new word, as it was first seen in print in 1955. Other new conjunctions in MWCD11 are NEVER MIND (1954), PLUS (1950), and UNLIKE (1949). The newest prepositions are OFFSHORE (1965), ANTI (1953), and APRÉS (1951) [Dan Tilque].

The following words have 75% of their letters the same: IIWI (a Hawaiian bird), BIBB, FAFF, LALL, LILL, LOLL, LULL, MUMM, SASS, SESS, SISS, SOSS, SUSS (“Suss out” is British slang for “figure out”), SYSS, TATT, ZIZZ, ÉPÉE (a fencing sword), DODD, EEFE, EESE, EETE, ESEE, FEFF, FIFF, FUFF, GEGG, GUGG, LELL, and NONN [Byron Davidson, Daniel Steinberg, Philip Bennett].
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IMPETICOS is an example of a nonce word (a word which has been found to have been used only once). The word is spoken by the clown in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. W2 says perhaps it means “impocket.”

INTERCHANGEABILITY contains the letters of the words THREE, EIGHT, NINE, TEN, THIRTEEN, THIRTY, THIRTY-NINE, EIGHTY, EIGHTY-NINE, NINETY, and NINETY-EIGHT [Stuart Kidd].

INTESTINES has each of its letters occurring twice. Some other such words: APPEASES, ARRAIGNING, BERIBERI, BILABIAL, CAUCASUS, CHOWCHOW, CICADELLIDAE, CONCISIONS, COUSCOUS, ESOPHAGOGRAPHERS, FROUFROU, GENSENGS, GREEGREE, GUITGUIT, HAPPENCHANCE, HORSESHOER, HOTSHOTS, INACCIDENTATED, JIPIJAPA, MAHIMAHI, MESOSOME, MILLIEME, MIMETITE, RAPPAREE, REAPPEAR, SCINTILLESCENT, SHAMMASH, SHANGHAIINGS, SIGNINGS, TAENIODONTIDAE, TEAMMATE, UNSUFFICIENCES, VETITIVE [Pierre Abbat, Stuart Kidd, Philip C. Bennett, Charles Turner].

The shortest word with six letters appearing at least twice is METASOMATOSES [Stuart Kidd].

IO (an interjection in Chambers and one of the moons of Jupiter), AI (the three-toed sloth), EO, OK, and AA (rough volcanic rock) seem to be the shortest two-syllable words.

IRAQ is one of the very few words ending in Q. Obscure words ending in Q are: ABQAIQ (a city in Saudi Arabia), AUYUITTUQ (National Park in Canada), CINQ (an alternative spelling of “cinque,” OED), FARUQ (former king of Egypt, also spelled “Farouk”), HALQ AL-WADI (city in Tunisia), INUPIAQ (an Eskimo people), IQ, KANGIQSUALUJJUAQ (an Inuit village in Quebec), KUUJJUAQ (a Canadian village), N’ASTALIQ, NESTALIQ (alternative spelling of “nastalik,” OED), PDQ, PONTACQ, QAANAAQ (settlement in Greenland; it’s also a palindrome), QAZAQ (alternative spelling of “Kazakh,” OED), QEQERTARSUAQ (island in Greenland), QUTTINIRPAAQ (National Park in Canada) RENCQ (obsolete spelling of “rank,” OED), SADIQ (a city in India), SAMBUQ (alternative spelling of “sambuk,” OED) SHOQ, SUQ, ZAQAZIQ (or ZAGAZIG, a city in Egypt), TALAQ (in Chambers), TRANQ (in OSPD), TZADDIQ (in Chambers; can also be spelled TSADDIQ), UMIAQ (a variant spellling of UMIAK, an Eskimo boat, in W2 and W3), ZIA-UL-HAQ (a proper name) [Dave Baker, Phillip Bennett, Eric Brahinsky].
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FROM http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words3.html
MASSACRING is pronounced with a vowel that is not represented in its spelling. Some other such words are HAMTRAMCK, EDINBURGH, RHYTHM, NTH, CHASM, SARCASM, DIRNDL, WORLD, VRBAITE (a mineral named for Karel Vrba, although R can serve as a vowel in Czech), GRRL and the alternate spelling GRRRL, which are in the Macquarie Dictionary, contractions (such as DIDN’T), and many other words ending in -ASM, -ISM, and -ITHM. [Mark Brader and others]

In 2003, in an open letter to Merriam-Webster, McDonald’s CEO Jim Cantalupo complained that the MWCD11 entry McJob is “an inaccurate description of restaurant employment” and “a slap in the face to the 12 million men and women” who work in the restaurant industry. A McDonald’s spokesman also mentioned that the word closely resembles McJobs, a trademark which refers to the company’s training program for mentally and physically challenged people. In MWCD11 McJobs is dated 1986 and is defined as “a low-paying job that requires little skill and provides little opportunity for advancement.”

MHO is a unit of electrical conductance. Since conductance is the reciprocal of resistance, which is measured in ohms, MHO is OHM spelled backwards. The only other word in MWCD10 the origin of which is a backwards spelling is YOB, now more commonly spelled yobbo, which is the backwards spelling of boy. However, Chambers has two other electrical units formed by backwards spellings: DARAF and YRNEH. In mathematics ATLED is a rare term for the upside-down capital delta (although DEL and NABLA are more frequently used) and the reciprocal of slope is sometimes called EPOLS. Barry Harridge, consulting Chambers, says, “A close relative is ELLAGIC (pertaining to gall-nuts, applied to a particular acid). The coiners of the word started with the French word for gall (galle) and spelt it backwards. The laxative SERUTAN was named by spelling natures backwards. The recording SERUTAN YOB was a send-up of a popular Nat King Cole song Nature Boy. Actor Howard KEEL was born Harold Clifford LEEK.
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MONDAY is the only day of the week that has an anagram, DYNAMO [Stuart Kidd]. The only months that have anagrams are MARCH, APRIL, and MAY. The anagrams are CHARM, RIPAL, and YAM [Ian Eiloart].

MUZZ would, according to Paul Dickson, be the last word in the Random House Dictionary if all the words in the dictionary were spelled backwards. However, it would seem that the last word in this dictionary, ZZZ, would remain last.

OF is apparently the only commonly used word in which F is pronounced like a V. The only other words with this property are HEREOF, THEREOF and WHEREOF [Mark D. Lew].

President Woodrow Wilson used the spelling OKEH rather than OK. He preferred this spelling, believing (incorrectly) that the origin of the word is a Choctaw word meaning “it is so.”

The shortest -ology (study of) word is OOLOGY (the study of eggs). Charles Turner believes the longest -ology word is OPHTHALMOOTORHINOLARYNGOLOGY (the branch of medicine which formerly combined the treatment of eye, ear, nose, and throat). He reports the word can be found in old medical textbooks and journals.

It is said that no word rhymes with ORANGE. There is a musical recording Rhymes With Orange by Mario Grigorov. There is a comic strip with the same name by Hillary Price. Witchiepoo sang There Ain’t No Rhyme for Oranges on H. R. Pufnstuf. Glenn Anderson reports a Canadian band called Rhymes With Orange had two hit recordings, Marvin and Toy Trains.

However, BLORENGE (a 1,833 ft. hill near Abergavenny, Wales) is given in O. V. Michaelsen’s book Words At Play. SPORANGE looks as if it rhymes, but the word, which is short for sporangium, is pronounced spuh-RANJ.
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Some other words difficult to rhyme are MONTH, SILVER, WASP, and PURPLE. The rec.puzzles archive has (n + 1)th to rhyme with MONTH, and words such as SEVENTH, ELEVENTH, and THOUSANDTH could be considered rhymes. Ted Clarke provides CHILVER (British dialect for “ewe lamb” or “ewe mutton” and a surname) and GRUNTH (an alternate spelling of GRANTH) which rhymes with MONTH in one of its pronunciations. HIRPLE is a British word meaning “walk lamely” or “hobble.” CURPLE is a Scottish term in W3 [Craig Lancaster]. HERPAL means “related to herpes” and is a Hindu name. WILVER is a given name; the best-known Wilver is baseball player Wilver “Willie” Stargell.

It is claimed that -OUGH can be pronounced 9 different ways in the following sentence:

A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.

However, David Olsen says that slough does not provide a unique pronunciation for -ough, but that HOUGH (pronounced hock) is a Scottish word, meaning the ankle joint of a horse, cow, or foul, or to hamstring, or it is an obsolete British word meaning to clear the throat. Olsen says that in order for the sentence to have 9 different ways of pronouncing -ough, it could be rewritten as:

A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed, houghed, and hiccoughed.

[Jim Spice writes that HOUGH (pronounced HOCK) is "alive and well in northeastern Wisconsin, even in its original meaning. To HOUGH is to snort mucus from your throat into your mouth in preparation for spitting." R. E. Davies writes, "This word also well known in Ontario, Canada, where the phrase 'hock a loogie' is alive and well. Most Ontarians would understand this phrase. As to the word 'loogie,' it also sounds like a good Scottish word, which is believed to mean 'that which one houghs.' I've never actually seen this particular phrase written down, but I'm sure school children in Ontario would not be surprised to find out that 'hock a loogie' should actually be spelled 'hough a loughie.'"]

Ted Clarke says there are 10 pronunciations for OUGH. He adds LOUGH, the Irish form of loch. But James A. Landau reports that the YOUGHIOGHENY River in Pennsylvania (a tributary of the Monongahela) is pronounced “YUCK-ih-gain-ee.”

Stuart Kidd provides the following, with 10 pronunciations:

Though the cough, hough and hiccough so unsought would plough me through,
Enough that I o’er life’s dark lough my thorough course pursue.

Kidd adds: “Note here that cough, hough and hiccough are somewhat onomatopoeic and that would gives yet another ou sound as well.”

The alphabetical sequence -rstu- is contained in OVERSTUFF, OVERSTUDIOUS, OVERSTUDY, OVERSTUDIED, OVERSTUDIES, OVERSTUNK, UNDERSTUFF, UNDERSTUMBLE, SUPERSTUD, OVERSTUMBLE, SUPERSTUFF, UNDERSTUDY, and BIERSTUBE (a type of German tavern) [Paul Wright]. In additon, the OED2 has INTERSTURB, which is shown as an erroneous form of interturb [Philip C. Bennett].

The only other four-letter alphabetical sequence found in English is -mnop-, which is found in CREMNOPHOBIA, GYMNOPAEDES, GYMNOPAEDIC, GYMNOPHIONA, GYMNOPHOBIA, GYMNOPHTHALMATA, GYMNOPLAST, LIMNOPHIL, LIMNOPHILE, LIMNOPHILID, LIMNOPHILIDAE, LIMNOPHILOUS, LIMNOPHORA, LIMNOPHORID, LIMNOPITHECUS, LIMNOPLANKTON, LIMNOPLANKTONIC, PRUMNOPITYS, SEMNOPITHECINAE, SEMNOPITHECINE, SEMNOPITHECUS, SEMNOPITHEQUE, SOMNOPATHIST, SOMNOPATHY, THAMNOPHILE, THAMNOPHILINAE, THAMNOPHILINE, THAMNOPHILUS, and THAMNOPHIS [Paul Wright, Charles Turner].

If we allow spaces and hyphens there are also FILM NOIR and STAR-STUDDED.

If we allow the alphabet to carry on round in a continuous loop, there is -yzab- in ANALYZABLE [Paul Wright].
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According to Stuart Kidd, AFGHANISTAN, KIRGHISTAN, and TUVALU are the only countries with three consecutive letters in their names. However, David Kendall points out that the official spelling of the second country is KYRGYZSTAN.
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PARADIGM was the word most frequently looked up in 1998 in the Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary. Some other words frequently looked up, besides obscene words, were UBIQUITOUS, ESOTERIC, OXYMORON, SERENDIPITY, HUBRIS, OBSEQUIOUS, and ECLECTIC. At the end of 2000, a frequently looked up word was CHAD. (Its modern meaning is in the MWCD10, but not the OED2.)

In 2001, the ten most frequently looked up words in the Cambridge Dictionaries Online (out of almost 15 million searches) were SERENDIPITY, IDIOM, PARADIGM, UBIQUITOUS, DICTIONARY, PRAGMATIC, EFFECT, GRY, JINGOISM, and FOIBLE. In the first half of 2002, SERENDIPITY remained in first place, although in October 2002 the most frequently looked up word was SNIPER.

The most frequently looked up words at the Merriam-Webster web site in 2004 were BLOG, INCUMBENT, ELECTORAL, INSURGENT, HURRICANE, CICADA, PELOTON, PARTISAN, SOVEREIGNTY, and DEFENESTRATION.

The most frequently looked up words at the Merriam-Webster web site in 2005 were INTEGRITY, REFUGEE, CONTEMPT, FILIBUSTER, INSIPID, TSUNAMI, PANDEMIC, CONCLAVE, LEVEE, and INEPT.

The most frequently looked up article in the World Book Encyclopedia is said to be SNAKE.

PIERRE, the capital of South Dakota, is the only state capital name that shares no letters with the name of its state [Mark D. Lew].
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PINK has a separate entry for each of eight completely different etymologies in Chambers. (Briefly they are a ship, to serrate, light red, yellow pigment, to wink, small, a minnow, to knock in a car’s engine.)
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POLISH is pronounced two ways, depending on whether or not the first letter is capitalized. Some other such words: Some more: AMEND [Cartoonist], ARES, ASKEW, AUGUST, BAD, BEGIN, BREATHED [creator of Bloom County and Outland], BUND, CLEMENT [street in San Francisco], COLON, CONCORD [New Hampshire capital], DEGAS, ESPY [word player], EWE, FOREST [town in Belgium], FORGET [tennis player], GUY [Flemish ruler], HERB, ILL [river in Austria], JOB, JUBILATE, JUNKER, KIN [Manchu ancestors], LEVY, LIMA, MALE, MANES, MARE [the dark "seas" on the moon], MILLET [French painter], MOBILE, MOLE [Sudanese people], MUSTER [tennis player], NATAL, NESTLE [beverage maker], NICE, OUR [river in Belgium], PLACER, QUICHE [department in Guatemala], RAINIER, RAVEL, READING, SAID, SCONE [town in UK and Australia], SEAT [make of Spanish car], SLOUGH [city west of London (not far from Reading)], TANG [Chinese dynasty], TANGIER, VITAL [Palestinian author], XI [river in China], WORMS, ZEMI [Naga people]. MAGDALEN uncapitalized means “a repentant prostitute”; capitalized, it is a college in Oxford and sounds like “maudlin.” EMBARRASS capitalized is a river in Eastern Illinois and a city and a river in Minnesota pronounced (aum-bro); it is also spelled EMBARRAS [Ted Clarke, Bruce D. Wilner, Dan Tilque, John Ramsden, David Giltinan, Charles Turner, Noam Bergman, Chris Cole, Richard Lederer, Rudy Wang].

PSI and SAI make up a pair of homophones, both of which refer to pitchfork-shaped objects. The first is Greek and refers to a letter; the second is Japanese and refers to a ninja weapon. (In Greek, PSI is pronounced “psee,” but in English-language dictionaries it is pronounced “sai.”)

Q is the only letter that does not occur in the names of the states of the U. S.

RAISE/RAZE are homophones with approximately opposite meanings. Others are RECKLESS/WRECKLESS, AURAL/ORAL, PETALLESS/PETALOUS, QUEEN/QUEAN [Bruce D. Wilner].

RESIGN has opposite meanings but is pronounced differently in each case (“to quit” and “to sign again”) [Robert S. Seidenwurm].

In 1934 Variety printed perhaps its most famous headline of all time, STICKS NIX HICK PIX, meaning “rural communities reject movies about rural personae.” In 1984 David Burdett wrote a book whose title was the variation HIX NIX STIX PIX. On May 31, 2000, the New York Daily News wrote on page 1 HICKS NIX KNICKS TIX with the sub-headline “Pacers freeze New York fans out of courtside seats at Indy.” The headline on page 5 read HICKS’ KNICKS TIX TRICK [James A. Landau, Mark Brader].

Stephen Morris writes that French for walkie-talkie is talkie-walkie.

The reason we say “razzle-dazzle” rather than “dazzle-razzle” is because “The word beginning with the less obstruent consonant always comes before the word beginning with the more obstruent consonant.” This is according to Steven Pinker in The Language of Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language.

Rot13 is a simple way to encrypt texts, by rotating the alphabet 13 letters. A becomes N, B becomes O, etc. Rot13 is mainly used to hide text from casual reading. The longest words which become other words by rot13 are NOWHERE/ABJURER and CHECHEN/PURPURA. Other interesting words are TANG/GNAT and VEX/IRK (which are synonyms) [Pierre Abbat, Stuart Kidd].
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FROM http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words4.html
No President of the United States has had a last name starting with S, even though it is the most common last name initial in the United States.

SCRAUNCHED (10 letters) and SCROONCHED may be the longest monosyllabic words in W3. The OED2 has these ten-letter words: STRENGTHED, STREYNGTHE, SCHMALTZED, STREIGHTES, STREINGHTS, and STREITCHED. The American Heritage Dictionary (4th ed., 2000) has SCROOTCHED as an alternative spelling for scrooched [Philip Bennett, Stuart Kidd].

Some nine-letter monosyllabic words are CRAUNCHED, SCHLEPPED, SCHLUMPED, SCHMEERED, SCHMOOZED, SCRAICHED, SCRAIGHED, SCRATCHED, SCREECHED, SCROOCHED, SCROUNGED, SCRUNCHED, SKREECHED, SKREIGHED, SPLOTCHED, SQUELCHED, SQUINCHED, SQUOOSHED, STAUNCHED, STRAIGHTS, STRENGTHS, STRETCHED, SCRANCHED, SCRAUGHED, SCRINCHED, SCRITCHED, SPLATCHED, SQUATCHED, SQUENCHED, FRAUNCHED, STRAYNGTH, GRAUNCHED, THRUTCHED, SCHWARMED, and SQUITCHED [Philip Bennett, Stuart Kidd].
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SUBBOOKKEEPER is the only word found in an English language dictionary with four pairs of double letters in a row. This word is in W2, but is not in W3 or OED2. WOOLLOOMMOOLOO, according to the Australian Encyclopedia and various editions of Encyclopaedia Britannica, is the original spelling of Woolloomooloo, a suburb and bay in Sydney, Australia [Susan Thorpe]

RACCOONNEER

Bob Erndt suggests there ought to be someone who has a raccoon that has a nook that needs cleaning, namely a RACCOONNOOKKEEPER. And from Bo Parker: At a dam, there is a flooddoor. The controls for the flooddoor are in the flooddoorroom. Let’s say the the boss at the dam calls a meeting in the flooddoorroom. The people who go to this meeting are FLOODDOORROOMMEETINGGOERS. And James Lehmann suggests: In the flooddoorroom, there is a book, which explains how to use the controls for the flooddoor, a FLOODDOORROOMBOOK, in which all four double-O’s are pronounced differently. According to Charles Hess, Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle mentioned FLOODDOORROOMMOONLIGHTERS, RACCOONNOOKKEEPER, and FLOODDOORROOMMASTER.
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TAXI is spelled the same way in eleven languages, according to Dixon: English, French, German, Swedish, Spanish, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Czech, Slovak, and Portuguese. Jeff Volgyi reports it is also spelled the same way in Hungarian. G. Strauss reports it is also spelled the same way in Romanian. However, Emerson Werneck says that in Portuguese, taxi is actually spelled táxi.
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Emerson points out that SAUNA is spelled the same way in nine languages: Finnish, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, German, Dutch, and Danish. Readers of this page have reported it is also spelled the same way in Lithuanian, Serbo-Croatian, Romanian, and Norwegian (although in Norwegian the word badstue is more commonly used). In Swedish, bastu, a short form of badstuga meaning (approximately) “bathing-hut,” is more commonly used. [Juozas Rimas, Nikola Petrovic, Gabriel Ionita, Thor-Rune Fiskum, Andreas Engström].
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Phil Smith writes, “Regarding the fact that ’sauna’ is spelt the same in nine languages, in Japanese the word uses the katakana characters (used for words that have come into the language from other countries) and is spelt ’sa-u-na’ too. This is unusual for katakana words, as they rarely match the original spelling, such as ‘kamera’, ‘pasokon’ (personal computer), ‘apaato’ (apartment) and ’sabiro’ (suit, originating from the road name Savile Row in London, where tailors used to work).”

Dan Tilque has found that VETO is the same in at least 24 languages: Albanian, Azerbaijani, Catalan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, SerboCroatian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish. In Hungarian it is spelled the same except for a diacritic. In Basque and Tagalog it’s spelled ‘beto’ and in Polish it’s ‘weto’.

In a 1982 Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson, a lecturer pointed to a picture of the tail spikes of a Stegosaurus and explained to the class of cavemen, “Now this end is called the thagomizer … after the late Thag Simmons.” According to a 2006 article in New Scientist, paleontologists have adopted the name THAGOMIZER [Charles Turner].
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THEREIN is a seven-letter word that contains thirteen words spelled with consecutive letters: the, he, her, er, here, I, there, ere, rein, re, in, therein, and herein [Stuart Kidd]. THITHERWARDS contains 23: thitherward, thither, hi, hit, hithe, hither, hitherward, hitherwards, I, it, ither, the, he, her, er, wa, war, ward, wards, a, ar, ard and ards [álainn cruic]. SHADES contains hades, shade; ades, hade, shad; des, ade, had, sha; es, de, ad, ha, sh; S, E, D, A, H, all of which are in W3. ["Word Torture," by Ralph Beaman, Word Ways.]

BEACHCHURCH

UNCOPYRIGHTABLE (15 letters) is the longest word in common use with no letter appearing more than once. Other such words: SUBDERMATOGLYPHIC (17; not found in any dictionary, but occurring in an article in Annals of Dermatology), MISCONJUGATEDLY (15), DERMATOGLYPHICS (15; Stedman’s Electronic Medical Dictionary), AMBIDEXTROUSLY (14), TROUBLEMAKINGS (14), SCHIZOTRYPANUM (14; Stedman’s Electronic Medical Dictionary), VESICULOGRAPHY (14; Stedman’s Electronic Medical Dictionary), UNDISCOVERABLY (14), BENZHYDROXAMIC (14), HYDROMAGNETICS (14), HYDROPNEUMATIC (14), PSEUDOMYTHICAL (14), SULPHOGERMANIC (14), BRACHYPOLEMIUS (14, a genus of beetle), and MACROXYLETINUS (14, a genus of beetle). [Charles Turner]
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Stuart Kidd says that MELVIN SCHWARTZKOPF of Illinois and DEBORAH GLUPCZYNSKI, a doctor in Massachusetts, have the longest names with no letter repeated. Andrew Davis reports that he lives in BUCKFASTLEIGH (in Devon, England), which has 13 letters and no letter repeating. JOHN TYLER is the only full name of a president of the United States which has no letter repeating.
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UNDERFUND and UNDERGROUND are the only words in MWCD10 which start and end with ‘UND.’ The OED2 has UNDERGROUND and UNDERSOUND. However, UNDERWOUND yields many hits on Internet search engines [Stuart Kidd, Philip Bennett].

UNPROSPEROUSNESS is the longest word in which no letter occurs only once.

USHER contains four personal pronouns (us, she, he, her). USHERS has HERS as well, for a total of five personal pronouns [Stuart Kidd].

FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION is the longest word that does not contain an E [Steven Van Gemert]. Another long word with this property is UVULOPALATOPHARYNGOPLASTY. E is the most frequently occurring letter in English (and French, Spanish, and German). Mark Smith reports the word refers to a surgical procedure for (most commonly) men with advanced sleep apnea, wherein the breathing passage is opened by removing the uvula, shortening the palate and removing the tonsils. Other long words lacking an E are HUMUHUMUNUKUNUKUAPUAAS, PHONOCARDIOGRAPHICALLY, PRORHIPIDOGLOSSOMORPHA, SUPRADIAPHRAGMATICALLY, and MACRACANTHORHYNCHIASIS.
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WACO and WARE are the only U. S. radio station call letters that exactly spelled the cities in which they were located (Waco, Texas, and Ware, Massachusetts). KING FM and TV station is in King County, Washington, and KERN is located in Kern County, California. WHT in Deerfield, Illinois, and WGHF in New York were apparently the only radio call letters that exactly matched the owners’ initials (Chicago Mayor William Hale Thompson and William G. H. Finch). Television station WRGB in Schenectady was named for GE executive Walter R. G. Baker.

Many suffixes in English change masculine words into feminine. According to Stuart Kidd, only one works in reverse, converting a feminine noun to masculine: WIDOW/WIDOWER. The only case where a prefix, not a suffix, feminizes a masculine term is with the female for REP (a disreputable man): a DEMIREP.

There is only one word beginning with X in Noah Webster’s first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806). The word is XEBEC.

In all of Shakespeare’s plays and poetry, excluding Roman numerals, only one word begins with X. The word is XANTHIPPE (the wife of Socrates). It is found in The Taming of the Shrew [Nelson H. F. Beebe].

Jefferson B. Morris points out that www as an abbreviation for “World Wide Web” has 9 spoken syllables, whereas the term being abbreviated has only 3 or 4 spoken syllables. A similar occurrence is WWII for “World War II.”

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