The only word

[mfgoode]

Whats the only word in the English language with all 5 vowels reversed in order ? :wink

Mally

[Uncwilly]

I know one that does that and has y at the end.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by mfgoode

Whats the only word in the English language with all 5 vowels reversed in order ? :wink

Mally

I knew of three straight away and an appropriate regexp dug several more out of my list of over 300,000 words.

These are the three I knew:

subcontinental; uncomplimentary; unnoticeably

You don't say whether other vowels are permitted out of order as well as the five that must be in reverse alphabetical order. If they are, my list contains 133 examples, including unconsiderate and unnoticeable. No spoiler on those two because I'm fairly sure that was not your intention even though a strict reading of the puzzle as given permits them.

A more restrictive reading of the puzzle requires that the sequence of vowels be monotonic but does not forbid repetitions. There is only one in this set and, to be honest, I've never come accross it before and as it's capitalized, I'd disallow it :

Fulgoroidea

And finally the remainder:

Juloidea; Muscoidea; Pulmonifera; duoliteral; quodlibetal; quodlibetary;
subhyoidean; uncontinental; unoccidental and unoriental.

I'm now kicking myself for not finding the last three of those without using this command:

 grep -i '^[bcdf-hj-np-z]*u[bcdfghj-z]*o[bcdf-tv-z]*i[b-np-tv-z]*e[a-hj-np-tv-z]*a[a-df-hj-np-tv-z]*$' words

Paul

[mfgoode]

The word I had in mind was -'subcontinental' but have to admit the other two you knew about viz: uncomplimentary and unnoticeably and have to acknowledge them as well. As I write I notice that 'my' word with the exception of 'e' is evenly spaced and even 'e' has one letter on either side .
Yes we can add the restriction that the sequence of vowels must be monotonic but not repititive.
I would not allow the ones beginning with capitals. However the remaining seven are as legitimate if they dont involve latin or Greek words or whatever.
Thank you Paul and uncwilly. I learnt something from the exchange of views

Mally

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

I know one that does that and has y at the end.

Oops, I didn't see reverse..

[xilman]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

Oops, I didn't see reverse..

Amazing, I thought, facetiously.

If you merge this and you would end up with a caesiously coloured icon.

Interestingly enough, though "caesious" has all five vowels in the correct order and with only 8 letters, the French word "oiseaux" achieves 7 letters, though at the cost of losing alphabetical ordering.

The longest English word which contains precisely one vowel, as far as i know, is "strengths", though a case could be made for "borshchts". Each has 9 letters.

What's the longest monosyllable? I know of an 11-letter example which describes someone who has used a particular method of transport. No further hints.

As you may be able to deduce, I'm a word-game fan and a keen solver of crossword puzzles. Anyone here who also attempts "The Listener" please get in contact.


Paul

[garo]

Here is another one:

What is the maximum number of consonants that appea uninterrupted by a vowel in an everday-use English word. By everday-use I wish to exclude scientific names and derivates thereof. I would also exclude something like borshcht - which by the way has an alternative spelling borscht - since it comes from another language unmodified.

[Mystwalker]

What's the longest monosyllable?

I know of Mississippi - also 11 letters.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by Mystwalker

I know of Mississippi - also 11 letters.

Unfortunately it has four syllables. It does, however, have only type of vowel, repeated four times.

"Senselessness" is a 13-letter example, but has only three syllables and even more 's' characters.

Paul

[xilman]

Originally Posted by garo

Here is another one:

What is the maximum number of consonants that appea uninterrupted by a vowel in an everday-use English word. By everday-use I wish to exclude scientific names and derivates thereof. I would also exclude something like borshcht - which by the way has an alternative spelling borscht - since it comes from another language unmodified.

Thanks for drawing my attention to this one. I posted from memory and got it wrong. I've now looked it up in Chambers.

The original word comes from Russian, where in the Cyrillic alphabet "shch" is a single letter. Acceptable English spellings include borsch, bortsch and borshch. The last of these is as close as is possible in the Roman alphabet to translitterate the Cyrillic.


Paul

[xilman]

Originally Posted by xilman

Interestingly enough, though "caesious" has all five vowels in the correct order and with only 8 letters, the French word "oiseaux" achieves 7 letters, though at the cost of losing alphabetical ordering.

I'm also amazed that no-one mentioned "oiseau".

Paul