ALPHABETICAL CURIOSITIES

Common words that have their letters in alphabetical order are:

1. ALMOST 

2. BIOPSY

3. CHINTZ

 

AMBIDEXTROUS words are those that have the first half of their letters  in the first half of the alphabet, and the second half of their letters in the second half of the alphabet. The longest of such words is (eponymously) AMBIDEXTROUS. This term was coined by the pioneering magazine Word Ways:  The Journal of Recreational Linguistics. (A. Ross Eckler, Jr. Editor 1970-2006)

 

Word in which the first half of the letters are from the last half of the alphabet, and vice versa are called ANTIDEXTROUS words. UNPROVIDABLE is an example of a 12-letter antidextrous word.

 

Both amibidextrous and antidextrous words must have an even number of letters to avoid the problem of a middle letter, and the words should contain no duplicate letters.

ANGST is the shortest word with five consecutive consonants.

 

ASTHMA is the longest common English word that has a vowel at the beginning and end, and only consonants in between.

RHYTHM and NYMPH contain only the vowel Y (none of the five main vowels) and TSKTSK doesn't have any. (We add the short "i" when we say it.)

Among the many words that use one letter once, another letter twice, and a third letter three times are banana, cocoon, pepper, googol, horror, and mammal. Sleeveless and rememberer extend the property to a fourth letter.  

In the Arthur C. Clarke novel and subsequent film 2001, there is a supercomputer named HAL. There is a curious relationship between the letters HAL and the letters of the computer company IBM. Can you determine what it is?

Answer:

Shift each letter of HAL forward one step in the alphabet and you  get IBM. Clarke insisted this was sheer coincidence, not something he intended.