Boy, is linguistics fun!



The Third English Word Ending on "gry"


Sorry, this one is not much fun. This question arose from an electronic chain letter written by someone who almost but not quite had a sense of humor. The original question ran something like this: "There are three commonly used words in the English language which end on '-gry'. 'Angry' and 'hungry' are two of them. What is the third word? It is a common word you use every day and if you have been listening to what I say, you have already heard it."

The writer thought that the answer to this question could be "three", i.e. that there would be some ambiguity with "third word in this message". Unfortunately, that interpretation is not available for the message.

This variant apparently was revised for the internet from an oral riddle which went this way: "There at least three words in the English language that end in 'g' or 'y'. One of them is 'hungry,' and another one is 'angry.' There is a third word, a short one, which you probably say every day. If you are listening carefully to everything I say, you just heard me say it three times. What is it?" The answer here is, of course, "say".

There are other explations as well. They all boil down to a bad riddle gone beserk.