Questions For Lyricists....

[john]

Hi

have a stab at any or all the questions. Accuracy is fine, though most have no real answer, but use of your imagination and creativity to come up with an answer please do!

• Why is there no other word for synonym?
  
• Why is there only one word for thesaurus?
  
• Why is the alphabet in that order?
  
• Why is abbreviation such a long word?
  
• What does acronym stand for?
  
• Can you shuffle all the letters of "anagram" to make another word? (All letters must be used)
  

If you can think of more such questions, please feel free to post them up

Cheers

John

[Alistair]

Hi

have a stab at any or all the questions. Accuracy is fine, though most have no real answer, but use of your imagination and creativity to come up with an answer please do!

• Why is there no other word for synonym?
  
• Why is there only one word for thesaurus?
  
• Why is the alphabet in that order?
  
• Why is abbreviation such a long word?
  
• What does acronym stand for?
  
• Can you shuffle all the letters of "anagram" to make another word? (All letters must be used)
  

If you can think of more such questions, please feel free to post them up

Cheers

John

How about...

Are you very, very bored, John?

[john]

lol I could attempt an answer if you like

[thelevellers]

Well this one's easy:

"What does acronym stand for?"

Alternative

Chronologically

Robust

Orthodontist

Needing

Your

Money

Like, Duh!

[Nightwolf]

[*]Why is the alphabet in that order?

cuz of the Song!!

[AnneC]

[*]What does acronym stand for?

A

Crazy

Response

Of

'Nitials

You

Make

[Carnival]

Why is the alphabet in that order?

It's a letter by letter transposition of the Ten Commandments from the ancient Hebrew into the written English letters of equivelent sounds. Until this event, in approximately 1070 B.C., English was a spoken language only. Changes to the respective languages make the the correlation between their modern counterparts impossible to decipher.

Why is there no other word for synonym?

The word 'synonym' describes two or more words that have similar, but not exactly the same meaning. The difference in meanings may be extremely subtle, and so must be absolutely differentiable against a standard. If there was another word that had a meaning that was subtly different than 'synonym', the standard to identify synonyms would become muddled, and synonyms would not be identifiable. The synonym of 'synonym' would render itself indistinguishable from it's own designation as a synonym. The world would then explode.

Why is there only one word for thesaurus?

This one is obvious. The word, "thesaurus" is the generification of the proper noun, "Thesaurus", which was the name of the original book of synonyms. Titles cannot be copywrited, so there was no way to prevent the spread of the word quickly into the vernacular. There are many precedents for this, including Dictionary and Almanac.

Why is abbreviation such a long word?

Abbreviations were originally seen by classical literary and linguistic scholar's as an affront against common decency, and a dangerous an influence by the less civilized elements of the population in changing their respective languages. In settling upon a word defined by such words that had been so mutilated, they determined to find one that could not fall victim to it's own definition.

Try to come up with a suitable abbreviation for "abbreviation". and you'll see that even a child would think you were a f**ing idiot. The most commonly attempted one is "abbrev", which, at sx letters, does not qualify. 'Abrv' has the required numerical brevity, but just doesn't cut it. Sorry.

What does acronym stand for?

Acutely

Chronic

Opposite

Name

You

Made

Can you shuffle all the letters of "anagram" to make another word? (All letters must be used)

No

Edited December 11, 2007 by Carnival

[typo]

Why is the alphabet in that order?

it's spelled that way

Why is there no other word for synonym?

there is, just not in the english language

Why is there only one word for thesaurus?

Most dinosaurs only have one name: tyrannosaurus, doyouthinkhesaurus

Why is abbreviation such a long word?

if it was shorter letters would be missing. bbrvtn <- no vowels. looks shit and i don't fancy saying it sober, nm drunk.

What does acronym stand for?

Absolutely

Chronically

Obsessed

Nymphomaniac

Young

Maidens

Can you shuffle all the letters of "anagram" to make another word? (All letters must be used)

real easy: agraman -> angry man

making up new words seems entirely reasonable

[thelevellers]

Heh, nice one typo, reminds me of this...

Doyouthinkhesawus?

Incidentally that site is great, you should check it out... It's where I burgled my avatar from...

Rohan

[Rudi]

dja du wip

djy du wip

dty do wip

day do zip

blanca

next question?

[typo]

been drinking that rioja again?

[roxhythe]

Sure. Here goes:

[*]Why is there no other word for synonym?

Because they used up all the y's. Y is not a very common letter, and there are two in this. They just ran out.

[*]Why is there only one word for thesaurus?

It says so. It's "*the* saurus." If there were more than one, they would have called it something else.

[*]Why is the alphabet in that order?

Well, the Sumerians started it, and the Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans followed. Nobody apparently had any imagination back in those days--it was a little like the music industry today. If you check the Orient, though, you'll notice the Japanese, Koreans, &c., used (and use) a different order.

[*]Why is abbreviation such a long word?

To give people a motive for abbreviating it. If they hadn't done that, the practice would have fallen into disuse. They was smart cookies, they was.

[*]What does acronym stand for?

A Car Ran Over Not Yo Mama. Police reports didn't have enough space to spell all that out. Police offcers are notorious acronym-mongers for that reason. B&E, DUII, and so on. The list is endless.

[*]Can you shuffle all the letters of "anagram" to make another word? (All letters must be used)

Managra. It's one of those little-blue-pill clones. The jury's still out on that one--but depending on what the jury's up to, that could be a good sign. Watch for it in stores.

And you wanted a question. What does "phonetic" have to do with phones?

Joe

Edited January 2, 2008 by roxhythe