A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia, Page 17
FRENCH WORDS
The French word oddities page was largely written by Jean-Charles Meyrignac (graph@worldnet.fr). Craig Rowland and Philip Bennett also contributed.
ANTICONSTITUTIONNELLEMENT (25 letters, unconstitutionally) is a long word.
BELLE-FAMILLE is the longest word consisting only of letters in the first half of the alphabet. PROTOTYPONS is the longest word consisting only of letters in the second half of the alphabet.
The longest words with no letter repeating are: CRYPTOGAMIQUES, STYLOGRAPHIQUE, XYLOGRAPHIQUES.
The longest word with no consonant repeating is PNEUMATICOHYDRAULIQUES. The longest with no vowel repeating is PSYCHOSTIMULANTES.
The shortest words containing all the vowels are: AUTONYMIE, BOYAUDIER, BOYAUTIEZ, GUERROYAI, NOYAUTIEZ, PAUMOYIEZ, ROUGEOYAI, ROYAUMIEZ, SEYMOURIA, YOUTSERAI.
Longest words with one vowel are BORCHTCHS and SCHPROMMS. Shorter words are: BORTSCHS, PSCHENTS, SCHLAMMS, SCHLICHS, SCHNICKS, SCHNOCKS, SCRATCHS, STRETCHS.
The longest words containing only one vowel, if allowed to repeat are REENSEMENCEMENTS, ENTREPENETRERENT, DEREGLEMENTERENT.
The longest words consisting only of vowels are YOUYOU and AYEAYE. The longest words containing only one consonant are OUGUIYA, AOUEIL, BOUAYE, EBOUAI, ENOUAI, OISEAU, YOUPIE.
CONTREPLAQUAMES contains the letters LMNOPQRSTU.
The longest words with alternating vowels and consonants are ADIPOSOGENITALES and ALUMINOSILICATES.
SEMNOPITHEQUE and M’AS-TU-VU contain the alphabetical sequences MNOP and STUV. HAUTS-RELIEFS contains the UTSR reverse-alphabetical sequence.
Three dotted letters in a row are found in Nijinski, Yangzijiang, Shijiazhuang.
Long anagrams are INTERDEPARTEMENTALES/DEPARTEMENTALISERENT and INTERTROPICALES/TROPICALISERENT.
The most frequently occurring letters are E,S,A,N,T,I,R,U,L,O.
EEE is found in AGREEE, ANUCLEEE, BEEE, CAPEEE, CONGREEE, CREEE, DEGREEE, DELINEEE, ENUCLEEE, GREEE, GUEEE, INCREEE, MAUGREEE, MONONUCLEEE, NUCLEEE, PLURINUCLEEE, PROCREEE, RAGREEE, RECREEE, REEE, REGREEE, SUPPLEEE, TOREEE.
III is found in GOIIIM.
The longest words consisting only of letters used in hexadecimal numerals are FACE-A-FACE, ABCEDEE, ACCEDEE, CACABEE, DECEDEE, EFFACEE, FABACEE.
The longest words consisting only of short letters are concurrençasses, concurrencerons, rèensemençasses, rèensemencerons, ressourçons-nous. The longest word consisting only of long letters is fifty-fifty.
The longest words with horizontal symmetry are COCCIDIE and DECOCHEE. The longest words consisting only of letters with vertical symmetry are TUYAUTAIT and VOUVOYAIT.
CIVIL and MILLI are the longest words consisting only of letters used in Roman numerals.
CONSTITUTIONNALISASSIONS is the longest word that does not contain E.
APERIODIQUE is the longest word containing the vowels in alphabetical order.
EAU is made entirely of vowels, with its pronunciation making a fourth vowel “O.”
AUTOMATISEERAIENT is the longest word which contains the five vowels in reverse alphabetical order. Other such words are RUDOIERA and TUTOIERA.
CASCARAS-SAGRADAS is the longest word containing A as the only vowel. DEREGLEMENTERENT and REENSEMENCEMENTS are the longest words containing E as the only vowel. The longest word containing I as the only vowel are DISTINCTIFS, INDISTINCTS, INSTINCTIFS, MISSISSIPPI, SCRIPTGIRLS. The longest word with O as the only vowel is PHOTOCOMPOSONS. The longest word with U as the only vowel are CUCURUZZU, JULLUNDUR, LUSTUCRUS, TURLUTUTU. The longest word with Y as the only vowel is FLYSCHS.
The shortest French pangram is: “portez ce vieux whisky au juge blond qui fume.”
The longest word with its letters in alphabetical order is AEGILOPS. Shorter words with this property are: ACCENT, ACCORT, AFFINS, AFFLUX, BELLOT, BIJOUX, BILLOT, CHINTZ, DEHORS, EFFORT. The longest words with their letters in reverse alphabetical order are SNIFFEE, SPOLIEE, VOLIGEA, VOLIGEE.
The longest word with every letter occuring twice is CONCENTRATIONNAIRE. The longest word with every letter occurring at least twice is TRANSISTORISASSIONS.
COMMISSIONNEE has four sets of double letters.
Longest palindromes are ESSAYASSE, MALAYALAM, and RESSASSER.
The longest reversible words are SLOVENES/SENEVOLS, REGAGNER/RENGAGER, ESSAYAGE/EGAYASSE, REGNASSE/ESSANGER, SECRETER/RETERCES.
The longest words with Rot13 are PERCHER/CREPURE, RAGREER/ENTERRE, RAVIERE/ENIVRER.
The following table shows words with the most occurrences of each letter.
a cascara-sagrada, Santa Reparata Di Balagna
b baobab
c cache-cache
d addenda, Saint-Médard-d’Excideuil
e réensemencee, Sainte-Eugenie-de-Villeneuve
f fifty-fifty, Pfaffenhoffen
g gigogne, Saint-Georges-de-Grehaigne
h hachich, Hochhuth
i indivisibilité
j jojo
k knickerbockers
l lamellé-collé, Llullaillaco Villers-le-Tilleul
m mammectomie
n non-interventionniste
o odontostomatologie
p présupposition, appropria, pupipare, Petit-Fort-Philippe
q quelque, aquatique, quoique, quadratique
r arrière-grand-mère, Chartrier-Ferrière, referrer
s assassinassions, ressassasses
t trottinette, Velotte-et-Tatignecourt
u turlututu, Poursiugues-Boucoué
v servovalve, Villeneuve-Saint-Vistreville
w bow-window
x luxueux, lexicaux, axiaux
y hydroxyethylcellulose
z zozotez
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INTERJECTIONS
There are 148 interjections in MWCD10. The complete list: adios, ah, aha, ahem, ahoy, alack, alas, all hail, alleluia, aloha, amen, attaboy, auf wiedersehen, aw, ay, bah, begorra, bejesus also bejeezus, bingo, bleep, boo, by or bye, bye-bye or by-by, cheerio, cheers, ciao, crikey or crickey, cripes, dear, egad or egads, eh, eureka, faugh, fie, fore, gad, gadzooks, gar, gardyloo, gee, gee whiz, gesundheit, glory or glory be, golly, gosh, gramercy, ha, ha-ha, hail, hallelujah, haw, heads up, heigh-ho, hem, hep, hey, hey presto, heyday, hi, hip, hist, ho, ho hum, hollo also holloa or holla, hoot or hoots, hosanna also hosannah, hot dog, howdy, hoy, huh, humph, hup, hurrah also hurray, hut, jeepers also jeepers creepers, jeez, jingo, la, lackaday, lo, lo and behold, lordy, marry, my word, od or odd, oh, ooh, oops, ouch, ow, pardie or pardi or pardy, phew, phooey, pip-pip, pish, poof, pooh, prithee, prosit or prost, pshaw, quotha, rah, rats, righto, roger, selah, sh, shalom, shalom aleichem, shoo, shoot, so long, touche, tush, tut, tut-tut, ugh, uh-huh, uh-oh, uh-uh, view halloo, viva, voila, waesucks, wahoo, welcome, well, wellaway, whee, whoopee, why, wilco, wirra, wisha, woe, wow, yech or yecch, yikes, yippee, yo, yoicks, yoo-hoo, yuck also yuk, yum-yum, zap, zooks, zounds, zowie.
In addition, MWCD10 says these words are often used interjectionally: adieu, au revoir ball, bam, bang, bon voyage, bosh, bother, botheration, boy, brava, bravo, come on, f***, fudge, go to, good-by, goodness, hard cheese, hard lines, hello, here, huzza, indeed, Jove, know, like, man, mean, my, nerts, no sweat, peace, period, rather, right on, rot, shuck, silence, skoal, so, son of a b****, son of a gun, there, timber, truly, whatever, whew, whisht, whist, whoop, whoosh.
MWCD11, published in 2003, added the interjection OY, which it dated to 1892.
The Oxford Dictionary of English, published in 2003, added the interjection BADA BING (also “bada bing bada boom”) as an exclamation to emphasize that something will happen effortlessly and predictably.
The OED2 lists 168 interjections, some with alternate spellings. The interjections with the most recent first citations are YEUCH (1979), YUCK (1966), KAY (1959), and ROG (1955) [Philip Bennett].
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