Thanks to those who made suggestions for last week's Short List (towns in different countries with similar sounding names).
Onus Probandy now submits this teaser:
"A famous old joke: "What's brown and sticky? A stick".
Ha ha. Now, this joke relies on a special property of the word "stick" and the adjective "sticky". Normally, that "y" suffix to a noun makes the adjective mean "like the noun"; but in the case of stick it has a secondary meaning, making the joke possible.
The short list I'm after (and I have no definitive answers) is the list of words that share this property. They don't have to be funny. e.g. "What's white and cloudy? A cloud" would not qualify, because the adjective means "noun-y". "
I guess it's the sort of thing that will drive you mad if you actively try and think of one - by going through every adjective ending with "y" and working backwards - but maybe one or two will spring to mind.
PS, £-s-d stands for "pounds, shillings and pence" and can also be pronounced "LSD", not to be confused with lysergic acid diethylamide, of course.
Tough but fair
1 hour ago
18 comments:
clammy / clam
parky / park
cranky / crank
silly / sill
groovy / groove
chippy / chip
What's loud and Cocky ? A Cock.
Rumpy-Pumpy?
Tack/tacky.
I once made up the name for fictitious Welsh towns.....they were called called Bent Egg Whisk and Danny Frown
Checking with an online etymological dictionary leads me to suspect that, cranky/crank, groovy/groove, chippy/chip and cocky/cock are all etymologically connected, ie that the adjective derives from the noun.
tat/tatty
Bat/batty.
What's brown and shitty?
A prime minister.
that´s funny =)
I don't think we're on the right track here. In the original joke 'sticky' is taken as meaning something to which one can stick, as in 'adhere'. But 'stick' also mean a piece of wood. So we need words that have the exact same spelling (or sound) that can be made into an adjective.
Erm...thinking....nope can't get any pro tem.
I'm not sure about shit/shitty, since shitty means "like shit"; similarly for cock/cocky (but one could argue the second meaning of cock makes that one funny).
However, all good so far; well done.
Here's my few (some are certainly dodgy):
balm/balmy
zip/zippy
band/bandy
dump/dumpy
peak/peaky
earl/early
class/classy
rim/rimy
How about:
Grate/greatly
Wait/weighty
those work aurally.
Ahem,
greatly is an adverb not an adjective.
wait is a verb not a noun.
oops.
OP, so which ones make the final list then?
park/parky
tack/tacky
sill/silly
earl/early
I can't say I'm sure of myself here.
"parky" means invigoratingly cold; which could easily be associated with a park (certainly a British one).
"tack" as a noun is an object; and "tacky" doesn't mean "like that object"; but a tack is an object that is used for sticking or tacking stuff, so there is a definite link.
"earl/early" (sorry, I didn't pick mine on purpose) is okay I think.
"sill/silly" is also okay.
OP, so it's still a commendably short list, as between us we've only come up with about three.
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