QUEER WORDS.

Bruce Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 42, 30 May 1910, Page 3

QUEER WORDS.

CURIOSITIES OF ENGLISH.

It is perhaps only natural, writes Mr Harold M. Haskell, that a language made up of so many heterogenous elements as our own should abound in curiosities not to bo found in tho language whose development was little influenced by outside sourcos, or in a scientifically constructed tongue like Esperanto or Volapuk. Certain it is that a knowledge of these curiosities brings with it something of fascination and "serves to endear to us our curious old language. Noticeable is the fact that words which rhyme perfectly may have altogether different terminations, as tho words "gneiss" and "mice," and that words which terminate similarly not infrequently fail to rhyme, as in the case of "brides" and "cantharides." Jn "suspicion," "remission," and "contrition" we have three words in which tho final "ion" is preceded in each case bv a different consonant; but, as the T and C both take the sound of S, these words all rhyme perfectly. Further investigation reveals the interesting fact that, whereas there is a great varietv of words ending in "tion" and "sion,"'only five bear the termination "cion." these five arc "scion,'' "coercion," "suspicion," "epinicion,'* and "internecion." "Epinicion," moaning a song of victory, and "internecion," meaning slaughter, are not in common use, but the other three words are familiar to all. It is perhaps worthy of remark that of words bearing tiie phonetically similar ending "turn" there are over one hundred examples. The termination "clous" is, however, even more exclusive than "cion," as it is borne by just four English words. These are' "stupendous," "tremendous." "hazardous," and "horrendous." Curiously, all the words in this latter group are adjectives, while the former group is composed entirely of nouns.

It seems somewhat strange to speak of he-heading a word of one syllable and leaving a word of two syllables; but there are several monosyllables that admit of this possibility. If wo behead either "caged," "raged," or "waged," ; used as monosyllables, we have the ! word "aged," which, when used as an adjective, is pronounced with two syllables. "Staged," twieo beheaded, leaves the same result. Better yet, behead "vague" or "Hague," e>r twice behead "plague," and we have "ague," | which admits of only bisyllabic pro- | nunciiition. Likewise "shrugged" twico 1 beheaded leaves the different word "rugged." There are over thirteen hundred words in our language ending with the long E sound, such as "tree," etc. ; but even this remarkable showing is eclipsed by words ending in "ess," as there are fourteen hundred of these. Krom the citation of the r e two cases it might be inferred that the poet has a sinecure to select a rhyme feir any word he chooses.to employ; but such is not the case. Exclusive of the ordinal numerals, most of which are unrhymahle, there are metro than sixty words that have no rhyme. Well-known examples of these include such words as "gulf," "mouth," "orange," "scarce," "silver," "window," "warmth," "spoilt," and "wasp." It is perhaps not generally known that there is a verso in the Bible that

contains all hut one of the letters of the alphahet. This, however, is a fact, as in the twenty-first verso of the seventh chapter of Job are found all the letters hut J. This is, of course, purely a coincidence; for, as the verse contains forty-three letters, it would be unworthy of note if done hy design. While oiir language does not contain such long words as arc found in some other tongues, nor so many words of unusual length, still we have several that are awkwardly long for conversation purposes., "VVc have "philoprogenitiveness," with twenty letters; "intercontrovertibilities," with twentyone; "intercommunicahilities," with twenty-two; "disproportionablenesses," with twenty-three; and "transubstantiationalists" and "contradistinguishability," each containing twenty-four letters* But how iusigmfiQaut are. all

thcso compared with the Dutch "Albassordammorlandarenopsteckovsvergiiclerin lokaal!" An effective littlo word is "synacategoromatic," as it manages to compress eight syllables into seventeen letters.