Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Friday Puzzler II - more word play
Alex Y
Jim made quick work of that last one. Here are a few more.
1) What is an English word that contains all six vowels (including "y") in alphabetical order
2) What is the longest English word you can find with all its letters in alphabetical order, with no repeats. (i.e., "ably", but not "bellow")
3) What is the longest English word you can find with all its letters in reverse alphabetical order, again with not repeating letters.
Re: Friday Puzzler II - more word play
Larry Barrett
How about facetiously for #1? There are probably others that end in ..iously.
Good on number one
Alex Y
Yours is the best answer, IMO. The only other one I am aware of takes the form you speculated: abstemiously.
First candidates for Number 2
Alex Y
I will offer two examples of alphabetical words with five letters. And unlike my number one answer of "abstemiously", these are words that almost everyone knows.
There are also a couple of fairly common six-letter words that meet this criteria--computers are fair to use here, guys.
I think anything over 6 letters, for either the alphabetical or reverse-alphabetical one are esoteric foreign or technical words.
Re: First candidates for Number 2
Larry Barrett
I did not adopt your suggestion, but tried to find more on my own.
Very good, #2 and #3
More answers
Alex Y
Since this is nearly two weeks old, and that is when messages scroll off, at least on my settings, I'll offer some others.
The longest alphabetic word is one I am not familiar with,
"AEgilops" 1. (Med.) An ulcer or fistula in the inner corner of the eye. 2. (Bot.) (a) The great wild-oat grass or other cornfield weed. --Crabb. (b) A genus of plants, called also hardgrass.
The longest common words are six letters: almost and biopsy
Reverse alphabetical yields seven-letter common words (and Larry was on the right track with "tried"; they are both past tenses):
Sponged
Wronged