There aren't many words of four or more letters in which one particular letter makes up more than half the word. The letter F in "fluff" is an example. Many of the words fitting this bill end with the letter Y such as "puppy," "daddy," and "mummy."

The challenge? What is the L-O-N-G-E-S-T word of this kind you can come up with? I have just one which is seven letters long though I wouldn't be surprised to hear of more.

As with other word questions of this sort, no proper names please (otherwise "Alabama" would be a winner) and interjections ("Ahaaaa!" "Oooof!" etc) will likewise be disallowed.

I found a 7: ill-will. CJ, I love this challenge.

Suggestion: if anyone finds one longer than 7, could you keep it under your hat until we have a chance to play around with the challenge?

After posting the challenge I came up with the 6-letter "muu-muu" which, while not a topper, is mildly impressive in its own right. I could be a jerk and add a "no hyphens" rule but, nice guy that I am, I'll let that slide.

You say you "found" your word. Is there a way to search a database of some sort to come up with answers to this question? If so, I would feel no regret in adding a "no computers, please, use your heads only, it's good for you" rule.

My daughter does not share my love of (OK, mild obsession with) words and thinks me more than a bit strange when I tell her that this is the sort of thing I think of late at night in order to get to sleep. I even keep a pen and a pad of paper on a nearby nightstand for good answers to interesting questions I ask myself as I drift off. One morning I awoke to find that I had jotted down "right hand - swampy" and to this day I have absolutely no idea as to what the hell I was thinking, but that's another matter entirely.

quote:

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Originally posted by C J Strolin:
My daughter does not share my love of (OK, mild obsession with) words .

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This is clearly some novel and unexpected use of the word mild that I have not previously encountered.

si hoc legere scis nimium eruditiones habes

Read all about my travels around the world here.

Fun thread, CJ!
However, I'm still on the 5-letter ones:
poppy
diddle

quote:

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Is there a way to search a database of some sort to come up with answers to this question? If so, I would feel no regret in adding a "no computers, please, use your heads only, it's good for you" rule.

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Yes, there is such a way. It's not to be revealed here, for I agree with your "no-computers" rule. The word I posted came from that method, but I feel legitimate in using it because I'd first found, from the head, a word just as good but less common.

P.S. CJ, check your private messages.

I'll supply the shortest: Aa. It's a type of lava flow.

Sorry, Kalleh, but "diddle" is comprised of 50% D's and so doesn't make the grade.

Also sorry, Asa, but the shortest words comprised of more than 50% one letter are (aptly) the one-letter words "a," "I," and "O" (short for "Oh" as in "O, Little Town of Bethlehem") all of which are, of course, 100% the letters in question. "Aa" is a favorite word of mine, however, and a must for Scrabble enthusiasts.

Shufitz does have a 9-letter beauty and, I believe, I now have the same one although it took a bit of a hint for it to come to me.

I mentioned "ill-will" to a womanfriend who shares a passion for this sort of thing and was stung when she sternly said I should have disallowed it since it is spelled as two words in its dictionary entry. I say that "ill-will" can be a hyphenated adjective as in "an ill-will atmosphere of negativity" or some such. A bit of a stretch but legitimate nonetheless.

Other 5-letter examples: eerie, lolly (candy or money, both British), mommy, daddy, poppy, sassy, titty (blush!) and bobby (the British cop, not the nickname for Robert).

Other 6-letter examples: possess and boo-boo. ("Boo-boo" is listed in the dictionary as primarily a children's term for a small wound although the not totally unrelated "wee-wee" is not there.)

"Possessedness" comes tantalizingly close with 6 S's out of 13 letters.

A hint on my 7-letter example: There is a 6-letter alternative spelling which reduces the letter in question to just 50% of the word. Naturally I never use this spelling. It is also a noun which I like to believe my writing has to a certain extent.

A hint on the 9-letter monster: One word within this posting strongly suggests the inevitable outcome of anyone who truly is this word. (Heh, heh!)

Happy pondering!

Before anyone else jumps on it, while rereading the above one last time for errors (the kind that only appear after you post something) it dawned on me that "possesses" is a perfectly legitimate 9-letter word with 5 S's.

I do believe, though, that there's got to be longer examples.

And remember: No computer searches - Grey matter only!!

beekeeper - 5 of 9

quote:

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Originally posted by C J Strolin:
Sorry, Kalleh, but "diddle" is comprised of 50% D's and so doesn't make the grade.

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Add a "d" and make it "diddled" and you get 4 out of 7. But that still doesn't beat Shufitz's "beekeeper". Or does it?

Tinman

Oh, thanks, Tinman for the rescue! I was feeling so forlorn because of multiple mistakes I've made on this site recently.
Congrats to CJ and Shufitz!

I come back from Egypt, and what do I see? A posting from CJ that says, as I quote, "...the shortest words comprised of more than 50..."

They may have comprised, or even been composed of, but they were certainly not "comprised of"!

Richard English

Yes, yet another grammatical error. Coming so soon after my imply/infer gaffe elsewhere, I'm mildly bummed.

And yes, B.H., "mildly" in this form, meaning to a slight degree or (more often) in a sarcastic sense meaning to a great degree, is not an uncommon usage over here.

Two more entries to add to the list:

As we've aged, many of my friends have grown quite a bit in the buttocks department but I myself have remained pretty much assless (7 letters, 4 S's) over the years. In fact, several friends are openly envious of my relative asslessness (ELEVEN letters, 6 S's!!) but that's their problem.

If anyone choses to argue the merits of these, frankly I doubt I'd put up much of a fight. This is just the sort of thing I use to drift off to sleep at night.

Just came from another board where I have also posted this question. Someone there came up with:

Assassins possess assets.

a 22-letter long sentence with 12 S's which I think is a gem! I added the adjectives "sissy" and "sassy" to the nouns but I really don't think it improved it at all. After all, pithy is as pithy does...

[This message was edited by wordcrafter on Thu Oct 24th, 2002 at 14:37.]

assists

Quote: "Assassins possess assets."

When the foolish jury found them guilty of murder, the newspaper headline read, Asses Assess As Assassins.

(13 of 22)

teepee
voodoo
referee
swiss

Don't forget "peepee" and "weewee".

"Reeve" is a female ruff (a Eurasian sandpiper). There are at least three other definitions.

Tinman (This is a "grinagog", a perpetual grinner, according to Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary.)

Parenthetically: teepee is an appropriate word for this week's Halloween them. In slang, to teepee mean to indulge in the hallowed Halloween custom of throwing rolls of toilet-paper ("TP") so that the sheets, trailing behind them, are left festooning the neighborhood's trees and shrubbery.

Nope, nope, sorry. I don't buy it.

Long ago the term "master of ceremonies" was shortened, logically, to "MC" and then, some time later, "MC" began to be written as "emcee." I think it was Walter Winchell who began this in his newspaper column but, regardless, "emcee" is now a perfectly respectable and accepted word.

On the other hand, to "TP" someone's home, hallowed holiday tradition as it may be, has not yet been written as to "teepee" it, at least to the best of my knowledge anyway. If this term exists at all I imagine it is the sort of thing that might be used by the sort of person who can't bring him/herself to utter the word "toilet" aloud and, by extension, the T in "TP" is cause for embarassment.

If you were to "teepee" my home, you would need to erect a large inverted cone over it made from stretched and dried bison skins but none of the kids in my neighborhood go in for such elaborate Halloween pranks so it's pretty much a moot point...

Regarding the original challenge, the word that prompted it is just 7 letters long and contains 4 instances of a letter you wouldn't expect to be so overly-present in a single word - the letter Z. The word has an alternative spelling (one which I never use, natch) that reduces the Z's to 50% of the word. Assuming that this is not much of a stumper, I'll close out this thread shortly. Thanks to all for your participation.

CJ, you're quite right about TP, at least as far as I know. And you said it with such pizzazz.

quote:

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Originally posted by C J Strolin:
"Possessedness" comes tantalizingly close with 6 S's out of 13 letters.

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Is "possessedness" a word?

Tinman

I couldn't find it, Tinman, either in Google or on dictionary.com. Google thought I meant "possessiveness", which is close but no cigar!

"Possessedness" may be found in the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition, at the tail end of the definition of "possessed" defined (loosely) as the state of being possessed. They bill themselves as "The Voice of Authority" so I suppose they'd know.

I don't have my pocket edition of the OED to corroborate (more than 50% O's and R's but let's not go there) this so use the term at your own peril. Maybe, like "gotten" and "the boss' desk" and a dubious foreign policy, it's an Americanism?

I find this a very interesting word because of its pronunciation! When I say possessed it has two syllables... po - zest. Yet by adding ness which, by all rights, should only add one syllable, actually makes the word four syllables... po - zess - ed - ness. Go figure!

"Possessedness" is found in the OED under "possess": "1. b. Kept under control, kept calm or steady, composed. rare0. (Implied in possessedness: see below. Cf. POSSESS 4 and SELF-POSSESSED.)"

Tinman

With my new understanding of the possessive plural rule, I have 2 more (thanks, Richard!):
1) sass's - "The sass's intent was diabolical."

2) sassafras's - "The sassafras's fragrance is devine."

Your first example would work even with the loathsome (to R.E., anyway) U.S. variation "sass'" (as would "sassy") but, sorry, with 5 S's and 5 other letters, "sassafras's" doesn't quite make it.

And how do you mean "sass" in your first entry? As a noun, would that refer to a person who sasses (67% S's!) someone else?

And, as a sidenote to the above sidenote, "S's" is another example of the apostrophe making a word more easily understood. Without it, "Ss" looks like a short burst from a leaky radiator.

CJ, sometimes I feel like your a little gnat--always at me!

You probably noted that I gave into Richard's way of using apostrophes for plural words ending is "s"? One reason was because of "sass's"!! I couldn't wait to post that as soon as I gave in!

Now--I meant "sass" as "impertinent or disrespectful speech" (AHD). The "impertinent speech's" intent was.... I know, it certainly wouldn't be used that way often.

As far as "sassafras"--I woke up in the middle of the night thinking of the number of "s's" in the pleural possessive of that word. I was so excited. Unfortunately, I thought it had 2 "s's" at the end: "sassafrass's". When I found I was wrong, I sadly posted it anyway.

CJ, sometimes I feel as if you're a little gnat--always at me!

You probably noted (in another thread) that I gave in to Richard's way of using apostrophes for plural words ending is "s"? One reason was because of "sass's"!! I couldn't wait to post that as soon as I gave in!

Now--I meant "sass" as "impertinent or disrespectful speech" (AHD). The "impertinent speech's" intent was.... I know, it certainly wouldn't be used that way often.

As far as "sassafras"--I woke up in the middle of night all excited about posting that as a possessive plural (I must lead a boring life!). However, I thought it was spelled, "sassafrass" so it would be "sassafrass's". So, I gave myself the booby prize and posted it anyway.

Before this thread goes off the edge into cyber-nothingness...

Somewhere along the line, someone said that it was possible, as I suspected, to use the net to bring up a list of words that fit the bill here (a word made up of more than 50% one particular letter) but that this person agreed that it made for a more enjoyable challenge to use no more than one's own grey matter.

Now that this thread has run itself out, I would be curious to see what the Wonderful World of Google (or whatever) might come up with. I'm rather pleased with my "asslessness" (as in "I would have been employed giving donkey rides on the beach if it weren't for my asslessness." which, admittedly is a bit of a stretch, albeit a logical one) but I'd be willing to bet there are longer examples.

I am notoriously so far behind the power curve computer-wise, however, that this task is well beyond me. Some help here, please?