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Jewish World Review April 25, 2002 /14 Iyar, 5762
Richard Lederer
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Among the more exotic denizens of our vocabulary are words that are devoid of any of the major vowels a, e, i, o or u. With tongue firmly planted in cheek, some call them abstemious words, a facetious label since abstemious (along with facetious) is fraught with every major vowel, and in order. Would you believe that there are more than fifty vowelless words? Excluding abstruse words such as cwm and crwth, we'll start with one syllable specimens: by, cry, cyst(s), dry, fly, fry, glyph(s), gym(s), gyp(s), hymn(s), lymph(s), lynch, lynx, my, nymph(s), ply, pry, shy, sky, sly, spry, spy, sty, sylph(s), synch(s), thy, try, why(s) and wry. Add two letters to cry, and you get crypt. Add two letters to try, and you still avoid using any major vowels in tryst. Add two letters to my, and you get myth; add three and you get myrrh. Among two-syllable words that exclude a, e, i, o and u are gypsy, pygmy, flyby, and the adverbs dryly, shyly, slyly, spryly, and wryly. Each of these possesses two y's, but one common two-syllable word of this type includes only one y. That word is rhythm. One three-syllable word also avoids the major vowels: syzygy, which means "the nearly straight-line configuration of three celestial bodies. Syzygy is an especially appropriate spelling for such a heavenly three-syllable word. A Sonnet to Vowellessness Once did a shy but spry gypsy
He felt so in synch with her rhythm
When apart, we would fry and then cry,
Her he loved to the nth degree,
Now that you're wise to the y's, ask yourself are there any words that cavort through our dictionaries without any a, e, i, o, or u or the minor vowels y or w? Hmm . . . That's one that you can find in some dictionaries, including Scrabble lexicons. Shh . . . Before you grab some s's, give me some time to think. There, you've just spotted another two, along with brr, pfft, and tsktsk. I sincerely hope that these abstemious words have pleased you, not just to the first, fifth, or tenth degree, but (and embedded in the poem above) to the nth degree.
04/19/02: This Riddle Isn't Letter-Perfect
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