Wordie: Panvocalics: Comments

Comment by mollusque, 2 days ago

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:32:32 +0000

Whichbe, I look forward to your report.

Yarb, I agree, the most pleasing panvocalics aren't composed of standard prefixes and suffixes. They just come out of the blue. I don't have a single favourite, but here a few:
tourmaline: well-known but beautiful;
jacqueminot: like tourmaline, a color, which I also collect;
milquetoast: a rare sequence of vowels not found in any other common word;
miaoued: love that vowel cluster;
resofincular: coined in 1976 for another purpose;
proceduralist: my 10,000th word;
syrup of ipecac: all six vowels in reverse;
Leighton Buzzard: for sheer improbability.

Comment by whichbe, 2 days ago

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 21:05:41 +0000

I wanted to bring this up later, but there's actually an esoteric, 'spiritual' dimention to euvocalics (though this particular neologism is unique to Wordie) that stems back to ancient Egypt, discussed in a book I've recently finished called The Mystery of the Seven Vowels. I'll report more on this topic here in the near future.

Comment by yarb, 2 days ago

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:51:46 +0000

I never cared especially for panvocalics, but recently they've been in my thoughts more and more. As I read I'm aware of a part of my brain trailing along two paces behind my reading, scrutinising candidate words. I suppose it's just having them in the background on Wordie that's made them sink in like this.

And I've realised that there are a few panvocalics which I consider "perfect", that is, those which don't make use of common vowel-heavy sequences like -ious or -ation. For example, loudhailer. Do you agree? What's your favourite panvocalic?

Comment by mollusque, 4 months ago

Fri, 23 May 2008 03:28:31 +0000

Turns out OneLook does limit the number of responses, to 2000. The limit used to be 400. Also, OneLook's "common" words options shows words occurring in more than five dictionaries.

Comment by mollusque, 4 months ago

Sun, 18 May 2008 15:47:28 +0000

Thanks for the reminder about OneLook, whichbe. I took another look, and some features have been added since I last wrestled with it. It no longer limits the number of responses, so I don't have to split the search to b*a*e*i*o*u*, c*a*e*i*o*u*, etc. Also, the "common words only" option eliminates phrases and foreign words, but seems to leave in all English words regardless of rarity.

Comment by mollusque, 4 months ago

Sun, 18 May 2008 03:39:41 +0000

I've done some such searching in OneLook, particularly for the rarer patterns, but the inability to filter out words with spaces makes it inefficient. Instead I've imported wordlists into my own database and done searches there where I can use better search tools.

Comment by whichbe, 4 months ago

Sat, 17 May 2008 18:50:25 +0000

I'd imagine that long ago you've gone to www.onelook.com and typed in wildcard variants like *a*e*i*o*u* eh?

Comment by mollusque, 4 months ago

Sat, 17 May 2008 12:07:12 +0000

Thanks, whichbe! And for helluation, which I found on Injesterly yesterday.

Comment by whichbe, 4 months ago

Sat, 17 May 2008 01:14:01 +0000

silvopasture

Comment by reesetee, 6 months ago

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:24:50 +0000

I wasn't counting myself out of the obsession thing, mollusque. :-)

Comment by mollusque, 6 months ago

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:26:12 +0000

Look reesetee, there goes a black guillemot!

Comment by reesetee, 6 months ago

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:35:26 +0000

And what delightful obsessions they are.

Comment by mollusque, 6 months ago

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:39:38 +0000

Thanks, c_b! Between your Aubrey/Maturin List and my panvocalics, I think we have obsession covered.

Comment by chained_bear, 6 months ago

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:10:11 +0000

Mollusque, you're my hero. This list is sick alsome.

Comment by mollusque, 6 months ago

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 12:14:45 +0000

Yarb, I tested hundreds of combinations ("baseliquor", "caseliquor"...) looking for the pattern in a published source (rather than online only).

Unfortunately, I must now report that "wasteliquor" is a false alarm. I was checking to see what the oldest instance was and discovered almost everything I'd found in Google Books or Google Scholar was an OCR error, with the image of the original document showing "waste liquor". So, the search resumes.

I might as well report what else I've discovered for aeiuo: "barley liquor", "cane liquor", "glaze liquor", and "paste liquor"; "caesium clock" and "magnesium bomb"; the generic names "Caespitugo", "Capensibufo", and "Laeviturbo"; and Latin "acerbitudo", "aegritudo", "paenitudo" and "taetritudo".

Comment by yarb, 6 months ago

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 06:33:19 +0000

Wow! How did you find that ungainly but loveable word?

Comment by mollusque, 6 months ago

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:51:41 +0000

Success! Wasteliquor has the elusive sequence "aeiuo". It's usually spelled "waste liquor", but there are enough examples in Google Books and Google Scholar to show that it's not just a typo as one word.

Comment by mollusque, 6 months ago

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 20:11:01 +0000

An update from the panvocalic campaign. I've created an open list, Panvocalic polyglot, for non-English panvocalics. Contributions are welcome.

The quest for an English representative of the sequence aeiuo had a false alarm today. In pairing various prefixes with -fluor and -tumor, I found "Alexifluor", used as the name of a chemical. Unfortunately, it turned out to be an occasional misspelling of the brand name "Alexa Fluor", so the search continues.

Comment by mollusque, 7 months ago

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:32:05 +0000

Happy hunting, skipvia and reesetee! I'm hoping you have access to different electronic lexicons than I do (e.g., LexisNexis, or a database of chemical or drug names) and can run pattern searchs. Or someone will come up with a madeupical word that turns out to exist in the wild.

Comment by reesetee, 7 months ago

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:11:51 +0000

What skipvia said. But I'm game too. :-)

Comment by skipvia, 7 months ago

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 04:09:01 +0000

Jeez, mollusque. If you can't find them, what chance do we have?

Still, I'm off to look...

Comment by mollusque, 7 months ago

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 00:27:01 +0000

Okay gang, I need some help finding a few select panvocalics. Of the 120 orders for five vowels, I've found credible, lowercase English examples for 117 (as tagged in the list description). Three remain.

aeiuo: aegritudo (Latin) and "cane-liquor" (hyphenated) are the closest I've come.

eaiuo: earthinductor has appeared in print, but is usually two words; beatitudo is Latin.

oieau: moineau is listed in oed2 and cdc1, but seems not really to be naturalized from French; Cointreau is capitalized.

Comment by mollusque, 8 months ago

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 17:52:38 +0000

Thanks, sionnach! I scare myself sometimes. Stay tuned for capitalized panvocalics and a pending call for some panvocalic desiderata (certain sequences not yet represented by satisfyingly English words).

Comment by sionnach, 8 months ago

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 02:51:20 +0000

I am in awe of what can only be described as a magnificent obsession. Though, truth be told, there's also something a little bit scary about the comprehensiveness of this list.

Comment by SonofGroucho, 10 months ago

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 05:27:15 +0000

Nice list. I had never heard of panvocalics before.

Comment by sionnach, 11 months ago

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 14:15:30 +0000

abstemiously and facetiously have always been my favorites, if only because the vowels appear in alphabetical order.

Comment by yarb, 11 months ago

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:39:12 +0000

Vancouverism, eh? I didn't realise my city had an ethos!

Comment by mollusque, 11 months ago

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 03:53:30 +0000

Thanks for Vancouverite, yarb. It is indeed a panvocalic, but having two e's, it doesn't quite fit the pattern of the list. But it led me to Vancouverism, which does.

Comment by yarb, 11 months ago

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 20:42:57 +0000

Vancouverite - a native of Vancouver.