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Article: Colloquy.
- Article from:
- Word Ways
- Article date:
- February 1, 2004
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Jeremiah Farrell. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Chris Cole notes "In my book [Wordplay: A Curious Dictionary of Language Oddities] I listed IEIE, the Pacific islands screw pine, as the shortest word with four syllables. This word is in Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary so it satisfies your criterion for inclusion. There are many other words in the vowel-rich languages that could be on this list. For example, IEIEA means barbed or hooked. This word has five syllables in five letters. Although the editors at Merriam-Webster did not include this word in the Third, I don't think they thereby intended to make a strong statement that IEIE is an English word and the other words are not. So while you have ...