h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm still confused about confusion and "Confucian"

TC It's because I live in a Chinese community - and how! the steps outside my house have been ripped up to put in a new electric cable. Thus there's a ten foot drop outside the front door. As well as the usual flashing lights, the first night the barriers sported Chinese lanterns as well

My husband was asked this riddle at work today. This seems to be a likely place to find the answer.

There are 3 words in the English language that end in GRY.
One is 'angry' and another is 'hungry'.
Everyone knows what the third one means and what it stands for.
Everyone uses them every day.
If you listen very carefully I have given you the third word.
What is it?

GRY

A quick google search on "hungry angry gry" gets multiple useful hits.

Generally, the riddle is phrased as something like :

"Think of words ending in -gry. Angry and hungry are two of them. There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word? The word is something that everyone uses every day. If you have listened carefully, I have already told you what it is."

The answer to which is "language" - the third word in the 3-word phrase "the English language"

There are some versions of English words that do end in 'gry', but none are commonly used enough to be a reasonable answer.

Aha!
Thank you.
The person that wrote and photocopied the question managed to get the wording wrong then!

I think we're agreed that "Riven" is a past participle;
"Rend" has the past participle "Rent";
I've never heard of anyone living in "Rentdell", but I don't suppose that is conclusive.

Shriven of course is something else.
Not at all like shrivel.

*silently rimes driven and drivel hoping no one's heard*

What about shaven and shovel?

~j~

"This is the man all shaven and shorn" Paved doesn't give paven, though < Hastily runs down the mental list of words ending -ven (mis-spent youth doing crosswords puzzles)and finds that most of them are not adjectives derived from verbs>

Graven.

Hi all

I was thinking about past participles in '-en' and checked my proposed example in Chambers. I was surprised to find that 'craven' is defined there as a noun, a verb and an adjective, but *not* specifically a p. pt.!

'to craven', v.t., is given (gi-ven!) as 'to render cowardly'

'craven' (n) is given as 'a coward or spiritless person' (!)

'craven' (adj) as 'cowardly or spiritless'

I was only familiar with 'craven' as an adjective ('craven coward' - though I never realised it was tautological).

Anyway, Chambers casts no light on the origins of the word, so I don't know whether it counts as a P Pt or not.

It was news to me that it was valid as a noun, though. (You filthy craven, you!). Of course, the word is rarely heard these days even as an adj. (although I *do* think 'craven coward' is familiar to many), and is more likely to be useful when reading Shakespeare texts than the News of the World (or the TES, for that matter!)

So there you, go - totally off subject, perhaps, but hopefully news to others as well as me!

Seeya
Spiff

Wand'rin Star chided me (gently) in another conversation for saying "less children" when I meant "fewer children". Is Star demonstrating that she is a dinosaur, remembering outdated grammar rules of a bygone age, or is it I who am revealing my Oirishness in my inability to talk proper?

Both, I think. I've heard "less people" on the world service from an irishman within the last hour! It's one of the loudest bees buzzing in my bonnet,

"Less" for contious variance, "fewer" for stocastic? 's children are quite definitely stocastic.

I thought the distinction was 'continuous' or 'discrete'.

They're discrete as well, though rarely discreet

Hi

just quickly, I definitely prefer 'fewer children' over 'less children' .

'Less child', maybe, if your kid's been on a diet!

Incidentally, , going back to participles, 'chid' is also a good one. I wouldn't have had that '-ed' on there! Course, I wouldn't go as far as to add an '-en'. Otherwise you might have bidden me farewell.

JWF - how about 'shriven' - 'shrivel'?

*off to look up 'stocastic' in Chambers cos it CAN'T mean 'like one of those early nineties pop songs produced for Kylie Minogue, J Donovan et al*

Spiff

Hmm, so what are the appropriate opposites?

Less - More
Fewer <> ?

I want it to be greater but that doesn't work in this sense. More-er perhaps?

My 'sense' tells me that more is the opposite for both here.

Spiff: as for craven it does make one wonder what the ancestors of those whose surname is Craven got up to!

Aha,

Chambers gives 'stochastic' (adj.) conjectural; (obs) random

The origin is given as the Greek word for 'skillful in aiming', which strikes me as odd in terms of the English meaning!

Can anyone clarify this for me. You seemed to be quoting it as a grammatical term. I have never come across this, despite looking at 'count' and 'non-count' nouns in linguistics (which I thought was what you were talking about with the 'less' vs 'fewer' thing).

Spiff

Miriam Websters on line has some interesting info on less and few.
Also includes fewness as a noun?
Has anyone used / heard this?

Is there another meaning for 'craven' - there seem to be lots of pubs called "The Craven Heifer", and also some northern british villages called Craven.