This thread is dedicated to words, which, through no fault of their own, are interesting in print.
Words with holes, repetitive shapes, ambiguity, &c:
savvy
assesses
aggregate
modern
filling
Any others?
«illigitimate»
Illegitimate—not quite as bad when you remove one of the i’s.
Most of those are ‘interesting’ in print more because they contain such very odd combinations (or repetitions) of letters than because of the shape of the individual letters, of course.
Frobozz Electric, Double Fanucci, and of course, the infamous Xyzzy!
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Aiaia
Sometimes spelled as Aeaea. The name of Circe's island in Homer's Odyssey.
A lot of words in the 1969 Marshallese orthography looked really weird -- actually, they first looked like encoding errors to this non-reader -- because the ampersand was used as a vowel:
Yi'yaqey y&q! Yij yetal gan Hay&l&gļapļap. (Hello! I'm going to Ailinglaplap.)
Actually, 'Ailinglaplap' is a pretty fun word even without the ampersands.
In a more recent orthographic reform the ampersand was replaced by ę, presumably under the slogan 'Ogoneks. Not just for Poles.'
«But seriously, I don’t recall seeing capital letters in the middle of words when I was growing up in Wales, but I may have simply missed this aspect of the orthography. Can you give me some examples, Patricia?»
I think she might possibly be mixing up one Celtic language with another (well, two others): in both Irish and Scottish, when initial consonants are eclipsed, only the original consonant is capitalised, not the eclipsing consonant.
So, for example, bróg ‘shoe’, dlí ‘law’, grá ‘love’, poll ‘hole’, teach ‘house’, and cill ‘church’, if eclipsed and capitalised, would be written thus:
a mBróga ‘their shoes’
a nDlíthe ‘their laws’
i nGrá ‘in love’
i bPoll ‘in a hole’
i dTigh ‘in(side) a house’
i gCill ‘in a church’
Even if written in all-caps, it should still be A mBRÓGA, A nDLÍTHE, &c.
I can’t think of any instance in Welsh where a similar situation would arise, either. Eclipses (or soft lenitions, or whatever you call them in Welsh—Welsh initial mutations confuse me a bit) are, to my knowledge, capitalised normally in Welsh, on the rare occasion that they result in multiple letters. I have a song called Yng Ngolau Ddydd, for instance; not Yng nGolau Ddydd.
A turkish poem. To my western eyes, this language looks soooo strange. Like the Scrabble board before you have started putting the letters into words.
Ben giderim adım kalır
Dostlar beni hatırlasın
Düğün olur bayram gelir
Dostlar beni hatırlasın
Can kafeste durmaz uçar
Dünya bir han konan
Ay dolanır yıllar geçer
Dostlar beni hatırlasın
Can bedenden ayrılacak
Tütmez baca yanmaz ocak
Selam olsun kucak kucak
Dostlar beni hatırlasın
Açar solar türlü çiçek
Kimler gülmüş kim gülecek
Murat yalan ölüm gerçekh
Dostlar beni hatırlasın
Gün ikindi akşam olur
Gör ki başa neler gelir
Veysel gider adı kalır
Dostlar beni hatırlasın
lyxvillor
this one must be somewhat famous as Gerard Unger has petitioned it to be removed from the Swedish language as it wrecks any attempt at typeface fitting with all those diagonals being followed immediately by three straight stroked letters.
Yes, indeed it is. What makes it even worse is the combination "ill" that follows, which tends to be relatively compact.
«in German: Schneeeule, Sauerstoffflasche, Passstraße, Schifffahrt, Betttuch, Schritttempo, Kussszene, Bassstimme, Fetttropfen, Teeei, Kohlenstofffaser, Eisschnelllauf, Fußballländerspiel, Klapppult, Geschirrreiniger, Essstäbchen»
My German is quite bad, so I might well be wrong, but hasn’t the new(est) spelling reform done away with all those (except Schneeeule and Teeei)? I thought I’d read somewhere that in the new orthography, triple consonants were always reduced to double consonants.
There is of course always the lovely Welsh town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which, quite apart from being ridiculously long, contains -(b)wllllan- with no less than four l’s in a row. And then goes on to end in -ogogogoch, which, in combo-Scandinavian, would mean ‘andandandand’.
Cauaiauaia (place in Angola) looks odd, too.
hasn’t the new(est) spelling reform done away with all those (except Schneeeule and Teeei)?
No, quite on the contrary, IIRC: while the old orthography only allowed triple consonants when they are followed by another consonant (‘Sauerstoffflasche’), now all the Duden has to say about this is to advise to separate compound words with a hyphen, in order to improve legibility (‘Sauerstoff-Flasche’). Triple vocals (‘Teeei’) always have been compulsive.
Additionally, a lot of new triples were introduced by replacing ‘ß’ with ‘ss’ in some words (Paßstraße > Passstraße, also all the other triple-s words that Tim has mentioned. It’s a ‘Missstand’!)
Btw, did you know that H&FJ did a ‘fffl’ ligature for Requiem, only to be used for that one word, ‘Sauerstoffflasche’? (and then they misspelled it in the specimen …)
I found another possible one in an old Duden: ‘Auspuffflamme’ [exhaust flame].
My favourite German triple is ‘Pappplakat’ [cardboard poster].
Florian: H&FJ did a ‘fffl’ ligature for Requiem
As I understand it, German typographic convention is not to form ligatures across word-boundaries in compounds, so 'Sauerstoffflasche' would have a sequence of an ff ligature followed by an fl ligature.
I am currently collecting words containing four or more ascender letters in a row (full ascenders, so t is not counted). Can anyone here think of any, other than the German fffl examples already given and the silly Welsh llll sequence?
Oh, to please Chris, some more Finnish:
ääliö (idiot)
määräilijä (bossy)
mämmi (easter dish)
kämmekkä (a plant)
Töölö (part of Helsinki)
vähälaktoosisia (low lactose, plural)
Ii and Yli-Ii (towns in Northern Finland)
tyylilyyli (stylish lady, a fun word)
tyynynpäällinen (pillow case)
Illi (surname)
ummetus (constipation)
uutuus (novelty)
John: As I understand it, German typographic convention is not to form ligatures across word-boundaries
Yes, you’re right; and yes, H&FJ seem to be aware of that.
four or more ascender letters in a row
Alkflasche coll. [booze bottle]
Fellkleid [fur coat]
Kaffklatsch – a synonym for ‘Dorfgeschwätz’? [jerkwater gossip]
Stoffblume [fabric flower]
Vollblut [thoroughbred]
One could make up a lot more compound words like these.
I found a great list of German triples, compiled by Konstantin Stephan.
Then there is the dazzling German language FAQL site by Ralph Babel. It provides us with four – at least theoretically possible – quadruples:
‘Raaaar’ – an eagle sitting on a rig, ‘Sanaaaal’ – an eel from Sanaa, capital of Yemen), ‘Unfalllloyd’ – a crashed vintage car) and ‘Zoooologe’ – an oologist working in a zoo (those words were found by Gerhard Horriar, Matthias Opatz and Martin Gerdes).
By the way, what do you think of ‘palaeooölogy’? It even has got a Wikipedia entry!
The FAQL site has even more ooddities to offer; see the ‘Rekorde’ page: For example, Richard Sokal made up a word with 15 consonants in a row, describing a combined Russian soup meal: ‘Borschtschschtschi’.
Textwrap: How does one pronounce the triple f?
Basically, not different than a single or double ‘f’. The vocal before (‘u’) is short, and one could insert a subtle pause between ‘Auspuff’ and ‘Flamme’, to make the compound clear.
«By the way, what do you think of ‘palaeooölogy’?»
Good Heavens! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a word before that required the same phonomorpheme to be pronounced three times in a row (albeit allophonically so in English). In Danish (as in German?), it would have three completely identical vowel sounds right after each other. [pʰalɛ.o.o.olo'gi:] for Paläooologie in German, right?
"... interesting in print."
Maybe σκουλικομερμηγκότρυπα (lit., worm-ant hole) fits the bill.
Or, for shapeliness, try this nonsensical tongue twister:
Ο τζίτζιρας, ο μίτζιρας, ο τζιτζιμιτζιχότζιρας, ανέβηκε στη τζιτζιριά, στη μιτζιριά, στη τζιτζιμιτζιχοτζιριά, κι έκοψε τα τζίτζιρα, τα μίτζιρα, τα τζιτζιμιτζιχότζιρα.
Awaiting an official Dezcom translation on that last item. ;)
"Awaiting an official Dezcom translation on that last item"
LOL! I believe that translates to: "Jack Sprat could eat no fat and his wife could eat no lean" :-) or else:
Όταν θα πάω κυρά μου στο παζάρι...
Όταν θα πάω κυρά μου στο παζάρι
θα σ'αγοράσω ενα κοκοράκι
το κοκοράκι κικιρικικι να σε ξυπνάει καθέ πρωΐ
Όταν θα πάω κυρά μου στο παζάρι
θα σ'αγοράσω μια κοτούλα
η κοτούλα κοκοκο το κοκοράκι κικιρικικι να σε ξυπνάει καθέ πρωΐ
Όταν θα πάω κυρά μου στο παζάρι
θα σ'αγοράσω ενα σκυλάκι
το σκυλάκι γαβ γαβ γαβ η κοτούλα κοκοκο το κοκοράκι κικιρικικιιιι να σε ξυπνάει καθέ πρωΐιιιι
Όταν θα πάω κυρά μου στο παζάρι
θα σ'αγοράσω μια γατούλα
η γατούλα νιάου νιάου το σκυλάκι γαβ γαβ γαβ η κοτούλα κοκοκο το κοκοράκι κικιρικικι να σε ξυπνάει καθέ πρωΐ
Όταν θα πάω κυρά μου στο παζάρι
θα σ'αγοράσω ενα προβατάκι
το προβατάκι μπε μπε μπε η γατούλα νιάου νιάου το σκυλάκι γαβ γαβ γαβ η κοτούλα κοκοκο το κοκοράκι κικιρικικιιιι να σε ξυπνάει καθέ πρωΐιιιι
ChrisL
Oh come now, anything in Basque if you want lots of the diagonals. It's chock full of z, k, x, and r:
Horren aurrean, alderdi ekintzaleak berari bozkatzeko deialdia mantendu zuen, nahiz eta bozka horiek legez baliogabeak hartu ziren
Granted, no word in particular is interesting, it's just all of them together. Wait, I take that back.
Garagardoa nahi nuke ("Can I have a beer?")
«El futuro es una línea tan fina que apenas nos damos cuenta de pintarla nosotros mismos». (La Luz Oscura, por Javier Guerrero)
Euskera mintzatzen det! (That’s all I know how to say in Basque, and I’m not even sure I’m remembering it correctly...)
I’ve also always thought the word ποιοι looks quite funny.
«Mishap and misled have always bothered me.
I want them to rhyme with bishop and whistled.»
I have that issue with ‘haphazard’. I always want to read it as ‘haffazard’ ['hæfəzəd], rather than hap-hazard ['hæphæzəd].
You might scan this previous thread for some interesting words, including sopravvivere (Italian); niilista (Portuguese); kijiji (Swahili); umhyggju, hrææta (Icelandic); süsüütés (Hungarian); and pretty much everything Polish...
Well, її is a pretty common word in Ukrainian (possessive pronoun "her"), so it's something to add to your kerning pairs in Cyrillic...
A semi-artificial word in Estonian: töööööök ("sickness of the working night")
Also Estonian: Õueaiaäär ("edge of a yard fence")
Roman numerals can form some interesting word forms with all their verticals and diagonals, like XXXVIII.
Ok, we are going totally off-topic but never mind:
This is the story of Mr and Mrs Peacock, who named their daughter Drew:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article95505.ece
Well, then, another one: Max Hell, 5, shunned by Catholic school …
Let's not forget Cardinal Sin, of the Philippines.
There is a gravestone for Dong Suck at Forest Lawn cemetery.
And I also saw a wedding announcement for Sascha Wiener marrying Harlan Wakoff. I hope she didn't hyphenate.
And for the record, Ima Hogg was a real person but she didn't have a sister Yura.
I needed medicine in Kansas once and was surprised when I was told to just go to the Damm Pharmacy.
Back to the ascenders John had asked for.
Today I saw this old blackletter street sign, and once more I was astonished to see how much more ascenders (and descenders!) we could have with a long s:

taramasalata: the Greek dip that also serves as a kerning string!
Some of my favorite words are in this list of short phrases for typeface specimens.
Have these been mentioned?
Long German palindrome (attributed to Schopenhauer):
Ein Neger mit Gazelle verzagt im Regen nie
(no translation possible because Neger is a no-no word these days).
And the shortest English word with all vowels (if you do not call y a vowel) in their alphabetical order:
facetious
And the shortest English word with all vowels (if you do not call y a vowel) in their alphabetical order: facetious
Excepting the far rarer caesious.
(if you do not call y a vowel)
And if you do?: facetiously
This post just doesn't want to die! It seems to have taken a break between 2008-2010 and again from 2010-2013....and now it's making the rounds on Twitter again.
Has anyone suggested turning this into a Type Challenge for February 2013?.....Come on, throw-down! How about taking just one of the first 20 words in this post and trying to pick the most interesting text setting to submit?
The winner is picked based on choosing the face that best visualizes the inherent rhythmic interest in the word and showcases its own interesting glyphs, the most interesting interaction with the word's semantic meaning, and most refined aesthetic setting.
LIST:
savvy
assesses
aggregate
modern
filling
banana
punctuation
filigree
graffiti
titular
boondoggle
representative
look
pool
room
marmalade
geostasis
spoon
palpate
sportsl
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