Five into one 1

[johnwm]

Can you think of any five-letter words in the English language whose pronunciation stays the same when you remove four of the letters?

________________________________________________________________
If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

'If we're supposed to work in Hex, why have we only got A fingers?'

 

[sha76]

[white]queue[/white]

"Your rock is eroding wrong." -Dogbert

 

[johnwm]

I was looking for more than one!

________________________________________________________________
If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

'If we're supposed to work in Hex, why have we only got A fingers?'

 

[sha76]

Hmm, think I'll let someone else have a go. (Purely in the interests of fairness you understand!)

"Your rock is eroding wrong." -Dogbert

 

[johnwm]

Sorry sha76, my comment sounded a bit short! As far as I know you have found one of only two available - congratulations on that one!

________________________________________________________________
If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

'If we're supposed to work in Hex, why have we only got A fingers?'

 

[sha76]

I was just suprised there's another, it's going to be bugging me 'til the answer's posted!

"Your rock is eroding wrong." -Dogbert

 

[ESquared]

I can't think of one! I refuse to look until I've thought of at least one.

 

[strongm]

[COLOR=white white]aitch
[/color]

 

[SF0751]

I don't think the pronunciation stays the same on that one. I had thought of

[white] Ohhhh [/white]

But I'm pretty sure that it would be considered cheating.

Susan
[green]Gramen artificiosum odi. [/green]

 

[ESquared]

A friend and I once invented a game where you try to cram the most letters possible into a word and still have it be pronounced the same. We turned Geronimo into Djairaughnimeaux. I think we also wanted it to be halfway reasonable so we didn't repeat letters or stick extra debatable vowels in.

I haven't peeked at the answers yet... still thinking.

 

[johnwm]

Congratulations sha76 and strongm - that's the two I was thinking of.

________________________________________________________________
If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

'If we're supposed to work in Hex, why have we only got A fingers?'

 

[ESquared]

[white]I finally got it! I was stuck on vowels.

aitch
queue[/white]

Of course, you only have my word that I didn't peek. Hehe.

 

[Stella740pl]

While I was thinking of 5-letter words, I found a few 6-letter words whose pronunciation stays the same when you remove 4 of the letters. You can try to find as many as you can of those, too. I have 3 so far.

 

[ESquared]

stella740pl,

Are you pronouncing the remaining two letters as a word, or saying the letter names of each word?

Well, now that I think about it, I'm sure you mean saying the letter names. I see now why I was stuck on vowels. I took the original puzzle 100% literally: the pronunciation of q is not queue it is kwuh (approximation) so I reasoned that the answer had to be a vowel.

 

[Stella740pl]

the pronunciation of q is not queue it is kwuh

A you sure?
Not according to this dictionary.

http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/q/q0028100.html

http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/q/q0000100.html

What I mean is, the assignment stays almost exactly the same, only instead of 5 into 1 you are looking for 6 into 2.

 

[SF0751]

Oh crud. I was just getting ready to pitch a snit fit about strongm's answer not fitting the pronunciation rule, when I realized that he's not deleting the LAST 4 letters (as in the first answer), he's deleting the FIRST 4 letters.

Well done!




Susan
[green]Gramen artificiosum odi. [/green]

 

[strongm]

>the pronunciation of q is not queue it is kwuh

No, the generally accepted pronunciation is kyü (or kju:, depending on whose phonetics you use)

And in response to the the earlier query concerning "aitch" and "h" I'm have to say that officially the dictionaries agree that they are pronounced the same way

 

[SF0751]

I agree, "aitch" and "h" are pronounced the same. My first response, questioning the pronunciation, arose from my inability to figure out what letters where being dropped. I initally thought that you were trying to equate "aitch" with "a"!

Susan
[green]Gramen artificiosum odi. [/green]

 

[ESquared]

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I'm sure you are all right about the pronunciation, there's no reason for me to even look it up.

The trouble I'm having is with the switch between instantiation and reference.

The letter A (which I just referenced) is a letter, not [red]a[/red] word. But the red letter As [red]a[/red]re inst[red]a[/red]nces inside of words.

So, to me, it is merely a coincidence that the letter A is pronounced the same as the word a. Same with I.

I'll have to think about it more!

 

[ESquared]

Oh, and the final point was that I don't think of q as a word... it's a letter. Yeah, yeah, it has an entry in the dictionary.

Thinking about if and how to modify the rules for things like word transformations.