FV. Singmastery!

David Singmaster, Puzzler Extraordinaire, early master of the Rubik’s Cube, poser of the Singmaster Conjecture, etc, etc, engages in some wordplay.

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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