Word Puzzles

1. Think of a set of three words that sound the same (homophones) but begin with different letters. Example: nice and gneiss sound alike and they begin with different letters, but there are only two of them. There is no third that I can think of that sounds like that. I can come up with four sets of three words, but I believe I have forgotten one.

2. How many English words begin with s but not sh, and are pronounced as sh? I can think of three, not counting derivatives of these three.

3. Give yourself 1 minute and write down all the words you can think of that are doubled syllables. Examples: bye-bye, Dada. Punctuation and capitalization do not matter, but spelling does (syllables must be spelled identically). See if you can come up with a primate, a flowering tree, an actress (her Magyar nickname for the name Susan, in English), and a treat.

11 thoughts on “Word Puzzles”

  1. scrabble players dreams questions

    off the top of my head, the some answers to the second q are sri, sraddha and sradha, which is kind of unfair because its just a variant

    the third q, lets see. lulu muumuu atlatl titi tutu grisgris to name a few

    the first q is stumping me

  2. Sza Sza, of course. And I once heard another pretty Hungarion being called Szu Szu. Maybe Hungarian has a lot of that sort of thing?

    Dada, Mama, Nana — all terms of affection — yoyo.

  3. Can you come up with 4 homophones of two syllables starting with M?
    How about 4 homophones of two syllables starting with C?
    How about 6 homophones of one syllable?

  4. Hmmm, Lexington – I believe her name is spelled Zsa Zsa, which somehow looks much racier!

    I couldn’t follow what was required by the other puzzles.

  5. Lex, Zsa Zsa’s name was being mispronounced throughout her career. Your Hungarian friend was pronouncing it correctly. I knew someone with that name; her husband’s name sounded like Bonk.

    The first question seems to be stumping people, probably due to poor instructions. Here is an example qualifying set of three words, pronounced alike, but beginning with three different letters:

    I, eye, aye.

    This also puts you halfway to solving Jimbino’s final question.

  6. Yes, the instructions were a lesson in obfuscation, but does low, lo – as in, ‘and lo and behold!’, and low, as in how cows communicate work?

    I just don’t understand this quiz.

  7. Congrats to Angie. There are air, heir, err, e’er, ere, are (1/100th of a hectare), and for your Cockney boyfriend: hair and hare.

  8. The only set missing from Q1 that I can think of is use, ewes, and yews. I’m not sure whether using the letter u to indicate a bent shape is OK, so I’m not counting that.

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