Tagged Questions
0
votes
1answer
200 views
What's it called when you switch the order of two words around?
What's it called when you switch the order of two words around, completely changing their meaning?
For example, simply childish becomes childishly simple.
Or wonderfully sarcastic becomes ...
7
votes
3answers
276 views
Term for a word that is unintentionally made up of two or more other words?
For example, therapist may be split into the + rapist, neither of which (arguably) has anything to do with the original words.
Another example would be conflagration: con + flag + ration. Or ...
4
votes
2answers
234 views
Isogrammatic sentences?
A pangram is a sentence that uses each letter of the alphabet at least once.
Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.
How vexingly quick daft zebras jump.
A perfect pangram uses each letter of the ...
4
votes
3answers
155 views
Is there a verb that fits in the pattern: quarter, third, halve (divide), [???], double, triple, quadruple. . .?
If these were nouns, I would assume "single" fits in between:
1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 1, 2, 3, 4 . . .
quarter, third, half, single or one, double, triple, quadruple . . .
Note that each word has a ...
12
votes
2answers
1k views
What do you call words that look like a negation but are not?
I can be nonplussed (in fact that is practically the ground state of my existence), but not plussed. I can also be indifferent; but if you are different, that doesn't mean you care, either. What do ...
81
votes
10answers
6k views
Is there a word for a person with only one head?
Reading this article by the fantastic Douglas Adams I came across this interesting quote:
‘[I]nteractivity’ is one of those neologisms that Mr Humphrys likes to dangle between a pair of verbal ...
3
votes
6answers
9k views
What is the longest English word that starts and ends with the same letter?
I've found "enterprise", which is 10 letters long. Does anyone know of any longer words that start and end with the same letter?
That letter doesn't have to be 'e', by the way. It just means that the ...
10
votes
4answers
1k views
English term for a word that differs from another one by just one letter
When I was a child, pretty much every children's magazine I subscribed to used to publish those little word-chain games where you had to get from one word to another — often an antonym — by replacing ...
