The Math Factor Podcast

3 Comments »

1. Brian Tristam Williams said,

   June 15, 2009 at 11:17 am

   A high-school favourite of mine:

   Punctuate the following so that it makes sense:

   alice while matthew had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher

   Ready for it… ?

   Alice, while Matthew had had “had,” had had “had had.” “Had had” had had a better effect on the teacher.
   

2. jyoak said,

   June 16, 2009 at 3:19 pm

   Wow!  I had come today to post exactly the same item.  :-)

3. Mike Jarvis said,

   June 25, 2009 at 3:36 am

   More quad-homophones (or is it tetra-homophone, since homophone has Greek etymology?) arranged roughly in order of quality, although I think they are all more legit than agreeee or bullllama.
    
   My best ones:
   lays, laze, leis, lase
   air, heir, ere, err
   medal, meddle, metal, mettle (depending on your pronunciation)
    
   Using Greek letters as words:
   rose, rhos, rows, roes (roe deer, that is, not the eggs which is already plural)
   new, knew, gnu, nu
    
   Using English letters as words:
   sees, seas, seize, C’s
   peas, pease, pees, P’s
   tea, tee, ti (the musical note), T
   teas, tease, tees, T’s
   you, ewe, yew, U
   use, ewes, yews, U’s
    
   Using Scottish:
   nay, neigh, nee, nae
   brays, braise, braze, braes
    
   Using rare words:
   way, weigh, whey (assuming you don’t aspirate wh), wey (=224 lbs)
   seer, sear, sere, cere (=part of a parrot’s beak)
   maze, maize, mays, mase (=like lase, but for microwaves)
   wheel, we’ll, weal (=general welfare), wheal (=welt) (again assuming wh=w)
    
   Questionable:
   oar, or, ore, o’er (poetic, but not a standard contraction)
   rays, raise, raze, res (as in: There are 7 res on a piano for the key of C.)(*)
    
   And depending on what you are willing to accept, four of these can bump up to pent-homophones:
   lays, laze, leis, lase, leas (the “lay” pronunciation is second listing for lea in Webster, but still acceptable)
   air, heir, ere, err, e’er
   teas, tease, tees, T’s, tis (*)
   use, ewes, yews, U’s, youse (NY/Philly slang)

    
   There are even more if you start allowing proper nouns (e.g. peek, peak, pique, Peke), or two word phrases (e.g. assent, ascent, a cent, a scent), but that seemed to be stretching too far.
    

   (*)Wiktionary declares re and ti to be “uncountable” — and hence no plural — but what do they know?

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