What is the longest one-syllable word?

Alan E. Feldman

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Jan 11, 2003, 12:07:20 AM1/11/03

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Hello,

The best I can come up with is "strengths". Someone showed me
"screeched". Is there any word that is one syllable long and contains
more letters (or even the same number of letters)?

Thanks.

Disclaimer: JMHO
Alan E. Feldman

Mark Wallace

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Jan 11, 2003, 11:01:25 AM1/11/03

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Alan E. Feldman wrote:
> Hello,
>
> The best I can come up with is "strengths". Someone showed me
> "screeched". Is there any word that is one syllable long and
> contains more letters (or even the same number of letters)?

'Straights'.
Can't think of a longer one.

--
Mark Wallace
-----------------------------------------------------
For the intelligent approach to nasty humour, visit:
The Anglo-American Humour (humor) Site
http://humorpages.virtualave.net/mainmenu.htm
-----------------------------------------------------

Ronald Raygun

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Jan 11, 2003, 2:28:16 PM1/11/03

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Mark Wallace wrote:

> Alan E. Feldman wrote:
>>
>> The best I can come up with is "strengths". Someone showed me
>> "screeched". Is there any word that is one syllable long and
>> contains more letters (or even the same number of letters)?
>
> 'Straights'.
> Can't think of a longer one.

I can, but it'll probably be disqualified as using too
nonstandard a spelling variant.

"Borschtsch".

Mark Wallace

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Jan 11, 2003, 3:36:02 PM1/11/03

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I can't pronounce that in less than 13 syllables.

Bonzo

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Jan 12, 2003, 5:21:31 AM1/12/03

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"Mark Wallace" <mwal...@dse.nl> wrote in message
news:avpve0$ibn1t$1...@ID-51325.news.dfncis.de...

> Ronald Raygun wrote:
> > Mark Wallace wrote:
> >
> >> Alan E. Feldman wrote:
> >>>
> >>> The best I can come up with is "strengths". Someone showed me
> >>> "screeched". Is there any word that is one syllable long and
> >>> contains more letters (or even the same number of letters)?
> >>
> >> 'Straights'.
> >> Can't think of a longer one.
> >
> > I can, but it'll probably be disqualified as using too
> > nonstandard a spelling variant.
> >
> > "Borschtsch".
>
> I can't pronounce that in less than 13 syllables.
>
> --
> Mark Wallace
> -----------------------------------------------------

> For the intelligent approach to nasty r a p e , visit:

John Smith

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Jan 12, 2003, 11:44:03 AM1/12/03

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"Alan E. Feldman" wrote:
>
> The best I can come up with is "strengths". Someone showed me
> "screeched". Is there any word that is one syllable long and contains
> more letters (or even the same number of letters)?

Scratched, scrounged, scrunched, stretched, and the plural noun
straights (all with nine letters).

The complete Oxford English Dictionary also indicates the existence of
scraughed, scrinched, scritched, scrooched, sprainged, spreathed,
throughed, and thrutched.

The OED also cites a single instance of the ten-letter word scraunched,
from the 1620 English translation of Don Quixote.

Source:
http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutwords/onesyllable

\\P. Schultz

Geoff Pearson

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Jan 12, 2003, 11:53:17 AM1/12/03

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"John Smith" <jsm...@company.com> wrote in message
news:3E219B53...@company.com...

Are we sure that "ed" on the end of word is not a syllable? It can be
pronounced as a separate syllable and even in modern pronunciation has a
sound verging on a syllable?

Mark Wallace

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Jan 12, 2003, 2:04:27 PM1/12/03

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Bonzo wrote:

No, no, dwudjo. You're supposed to say something.

I know it's all a bit complex for you, but keep trying.

--
Mark Wallace
-----------------------------------------------------
For the intelligent approach to nasty humour, visit:

Raymond S. Wise

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Jan 12, 2003, 2:50:45 PM1/12/03

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"Geoff Pearson" <gspe...@btopenworld.com> wrote in message
news:avs6hr$imiu6$1...@ID-120835.news.dfncis.de...

It's a syllable when it's pronounced as a syllable and not a syllable when
it is not pronounced as a syllable. It's like the first "c" in "arctic" or
the "t" in "often": When they are pronounced, they represent sounds, when
they are not pronounced they do not represent sounds.

--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA

E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com

Raymond S. Wise

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Jan 13, 2003, 1:45:55 AM1/13/03

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"Raymond S. Wise" <illinoi...@mninter.net> wrote in message
news:v23hoq8...@corp.supernews.com...

Richard W. Bailey discusses the matter of "ed" losing the pronunciation of
the "e" in the "Grammar" chapter of his book *Nineteenth-Century English,*
Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press, (C) 1996: A book well worth
reading. When speaking of this phenomenon, he refers to it as "syllable
reduction," and he quotes a sentence from Matthew Harrison (in the
quote-within-a-quote following), written in 1850, which shows the change
from "ed" to /t/ or /d/ to be "a source of anxiety: 'Are we doomed to admit
into the English language such terms as _quackt, stackt, awakt, nakt, digt,
fixt,_ &c?' [...] The answer was, of course, affirmative with the exception
of _naked_ (with two syllables) and _awake_ and _dig_ (with their strong
forms)."

Bailey gives, as an example of a rare variation continuing in today's
English, "_hallowed_ with three syllables in the Lord's Prayer but two
syllables otherwise." This does not agree with my pronunciation: I say
"hallowed" with two syllables even when saying the Lord's Prayer.

Geoff Pearson

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Jan 13, 2003, 3:47:36 PM1/13/03

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"Raymond S. Wise" <illinoi...@mninter.net> wrote in message

news:v24o57o...@corp.supernews.com...

I was merely listening to myself speak - standard south of England Rp
modified by living in Scotland for 30 years which tends to round up vowels a
bit: 1960s BBC English. I can hear that I make a semi-syllable of "ed" on
most words. Those letters take longer to say than others -as if a syllable
was coming on/disappearing