Tuesday 9 August 2011

Short Lists

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.

18 comments:

Duncan Stott said...

clammy / clam

Duncan Stott said...

parky / park
cranky / crank
silly / sill
groovy / groove

View from the Solent said...

chippy / chip

G said...

What's loud and Cocky ? A Cock.

James Higham said...

Rumpy-Pumpy?

Mark Wadsworth said...

Tack/tacky.

Richard Henley Davis said...

I once made up the name for fictitious Welsh towns.....they were called called Bent Egg Whisk and Danny Frown

Bayard said...

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

Mark Wadsworth said...

Bat/batty.

dearieme said...

What's brown and shitty?
A prime minister.

Mix Notícias said...

that´s funny =)

Lola said...

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.

Onus Probandy said...

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

Lola said...

How about:

Grate/greatly
Wait/weighty

those work aurally.

Onus Probandy said...

Ahem,

greatly is an adverb not an adjective.

wait is a verb not a noun.

oops.

Mark Wadsworth said...

OP, so which ones make the final list then?

Onus Probandy said...

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.

Mark Wadsworth said...

OP, so it's still a commendably short list, as between us we've only come up with about three.