xkcd

by **de Quincey** » Mon Nov 09, 2009 10:20 am UTC

Stent Threnody Crepuscule.

If it wasn't an album by Captain Beefheart, it should have been.

by **Makri** » Mon Nov 09, 2009 8:52 pm UTC

Shrubbery!

It sounds funny, and it has funny associations tied to it.

by **Bobber** » Wed Dec 02, 2009 4:20 pm UTC

I just came upon the word "morphophonologically" in the Wikipedia article on linguistic chain shifts.

It has five syllables in a row with "o" as the only vowel, and it has two "-pho-" syllables juxtaposed.

How can you not love it?

by **Lounge** » Wed Dec 02, 2009 9:25 pm UTC

Lounge, aquarium, generic, jest, and thief are all pretty loveable words in my book.

by **breintje** » Wed Dec 02, 2009 9:41 pm UTC

Lynx, if only for lack of vowels. And Joy is a nice word as well.

by **Bobber** » Wed Dec 02, 2009 10:07 pm UTC

breintje wrote:Lynx, if only for lack of vowels.

But the vowel is RIGHT THERE! Oh, you silly English and your consonant Ys...

by **gmalivuk** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 12:32 am UTC

Bobber wrote:
breintje wrote:Lynx, if only for lack of vowels.
But the vowel is RIGHT THERE! Oh, you silly English and your consonant Ys...

No, many of us understand that y is most definitely a vowel in that word, just like w is one in cwm, which is also often mentioned as being a "vowelless" word. (At least the cwm advocates have a word with an uncommon vowel. Calling 'lynx' a word without vowels is as ridiculous as saying synonym has only one.)

by **Vault** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 3:38 am UTC

Ooh! This thread is wonderful. Some of my favorites

felicity (hasn't been mentioned yet, but I think it it very pretty, and sounds exactly like what it means)
ephemeral
evanescence

and a word that I like, but wish sounded better: Kafkaesque.

by **breintje** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 6:10 am UTC

Bobber wrote:
breintje wrote:Lynx, if only for lack of vowels.
But the vowel is RIGHT THERE! Oh, you silly English and your consonant Ys...

Dutch, actually. And yes, I know the y is a vowel in this case, just that the y is defined as consonant letter. Nevertheless, its a nice word.

by **Monika** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 11:00 am UTC

Vault wrote:Ooh! This thread is wonderful. Some of my favorites

felicity (hasn't been mentioned yet, but I think it it very pretty, and sounds exactly like what it means)
ephemeral
evanescence

and a word that I like, but wish sounded better: Kafkaesque.

But it also sounds like what it is by sounding not good

.

by **PM 2Ring** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 12:45 pm UTC

Præternatural.

It just popped into my head, for no apparent reason. Spooky!

by **MotorToad** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 5:42 pm UTC

Natatorium. A word so cool that FF doesn't know how to spell it.

by **gmalivuk** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 9:20 pm UTC

breintje wrote:the y is defined as consonant letter.

Defined by whom, exactly?

by **Monika** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 10:23 am UTC

Wheel of Fortune. You gotta buy the aeiou, but not the y.

by **Bobber** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 11:11 am UTC

Monika wrote:Wheel of Fortune. You gotta buy the aeiou, but not the y.

That was... genius.

by **Velifer** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 12:59 pm UTC

Bobber wrote:
Monika wrote:Wheel of Fortune. You gotta buy the aeiou, but not the y.
That was... genius.

Cheeseburns!
□□PS□□□ TH□ T□□N□□□□□NGS

Spoiler:

Jenny: "Uh... I'd like to buy a vowel..."
Pat: "Oh, this should be good..."

by **Monika** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 2:19 pm UTC

Velifer wrote:□□PS□□□ TH□ T□□N□□□□□NGS
Spoiler:
gypsyfy thy twyndyllyngs

What does this mean?

by **Velifer** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 3:12 pm UTC

Monika wrote:What does this mean?

Wheel of Fortune? Our Department of Cultural Imperialism must be underfunded... or were you wondering about "turn your twins into gypsies?" Not a great phrase, archaic, but you try coming up with good sentences that don't have any of the usual vowels!

by **Monika** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 5:31 pm UTC

Velifer wrote:
Monika wrote:What does this mean?

Wheel of Fortune? Our Department of Cultural Imperialism must be underfunded...

Scroll up, I posted about Wheel of Fortune. Your Department of Cultural Imperialism exported it to Germany in 1988 already, and it ran till 2004 (well 2005 on 9live, but that doesn't count). My grandparents were very sad when it was stopped. :cry:

or were you wondering about "turn your twins into gypsies?" Not a great phrase, archaic, but you try coming up with good sentences that don't have any of the usual vowels!

Yes, I was wondering about that, especially about the twindilings part.

by **AwesomeJosh** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 6:36 pm UTC

I've always found "foppish" to be a funny word. I also think "book" sounds really weird. It's not that I dislike the word...I just think it sounds extremely weird, and doesn't really sound like a word at all.

by **Monika** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 7:55 pm UTC

Do you also think words like look or duck sound strange?

by **AwesomeJosh** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 10:20 pm UTC

That's the weird thing. It's just "book"

by **Whelan** » Mon Dec 07, 2009 10:29 pm UTC

Hyphe wrote:I love words with unexpected dipthongs in the middle. (I think it's dipthongs: where you have two consonants that make a different sound?) The only examples that jump to mind are "dishonest" and "sweetheart". The great thing is I like these words when I read them and when I'm saying them, too, even though it's the spelling that makes me like them. Any time I spot one, or say it by accident, it always makes me smile.

This is the reason that Cyclooctane is my favourite alkane.

by **Rammi** » Wed Dec 09, 2009 7:58 pm UTC

Procrastination.

by **Felstaff** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 9:21 pm UTC

I find 'shield' to be a lovely, complex word, in a similar way that Tolkien et al loved 'cellar door'.

...Which after a swift search, has been oft-repeated in this topic. And the one I just merged it with.

by **Mighty Jalapeno** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 12:25 am UTC

Foible.

by **silleknarf** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 4:03 pm UTC

Foible has been said but what about:
nymph
scyphozoa
boistorous
collage
emancipate
calibration
ragamuffin

by **Monika** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 11:11 pm UTC

Ragamuffin sounds cool. I knew someone with this nick, never realized it's a real word and what it means.

by **TimelordSimone** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 7:15 am UTC

Ostensibly, disingenuous, hyperbole, and verisimilitude are all awesome to me.
I remember a girl at school and I used to discuss words that sound awesome (instead of doing work), coming up with things like glockenspiel and longitude.

by **deskjethp** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 3:55 am UTC

Words I like: (different row = different reason)

nymph, stretch, silk(y), flux, demoness, exalt, exact, text, foxy
engineer/engineering/engineered
clad, click, clock, block, chop(ped), flock, quickly
lily, flitter, filter, slippery, link, slinky
loop, bounce, crux
(auto)defenestration

by **Iulus Cofield** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 12:10 am UTC

Autodefenestration is a great word. That's what teenagers do when they sneak out of their houses, right?

by **Gigano** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 12:18 pm UTC

Iulus Cofield wrote:Autodefenestration is a great word. That's what teenagers do when they sneak out of their houses, right?

Not quite, that would really ruin their night out. Autodefenestration is the act of throwing oneself out of the window.

by **Iulus Cofield** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 9:09 pm UTC

How else does one sneak out of the house?

by **Monika** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 9:19 pm UTC

Out the door?

by **Chuff** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 9:21 pm UTC

Why would you throw yourself out a door? I imagine it'd be harder to break through, not easier.

by **Monika** » Thu Jun 23, 2011 9:44 pm UTC

Breaking a window by throwing yourself through it is not very sneaky.

Sneak is btw an English word I like.

by **GhostWolfe** » Fri Jun 24, 2011 3:26 am UTC

Iulus Cofield wrote:How else does one sneak out of the house?

Well I would sneak out by climbing carefully out the window. Throwing oneself out the window sounds awkward and painful. Unless you had some sort of mattress to land on I guess.

/angell

by **Gigano** » Fri Jun 24, 2011 6:41 am UTC

Monika wrote:Breaking a window by throwing yourself through it is not very sneaky.

It would also hurt like hell, assuming most teenager have their bedroom at least 3 metres off above the ground.

by **Sanjuricus** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 3:43 pm UTC

I like:
Sesquipedalian (for its irony!)
Zenzizenzizenzic (actual word!)
Somnambulance
Paraskeviadekatriaphobia (sp?)
Floccinoccinihifillipication (again, sp?)
Absonotly
Abuba

I also like stringing ridiculous amounts of suffixes and prefixes to elongate words....just for fun mind!!!
Postsemiantiantidisestablishmentarianismisationalisticallismisationalistically :shock:

by **TimelordSimone** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 10:39 am UTC

Sanjuricus wrote:Sesquipedalian (for its irony!)

1. (of a word) Polysyllabic; long: "sesquipedalian surnames".

I am fairly sure that is the opposite of irony.

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