Panvocalics

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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.

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.

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.

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?

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

silvopasture

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

Look reesetee, there goes a black guillemot!

And what delightful obsessions they are.

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

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

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".

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Still, I'm off to look...

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.

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).

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.

Nice list. I had never heard of panvocalics before.

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

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

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.

Vancouverite - a native of Vancouver.