Date: Thu, 2 Jan 1997 16:26:08 -0500
From: Mark Mandel Mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]DRAGONSYS.COM
Subject: Re: Gry again -Reply
Heilan Yvette Grimes HEP2[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM 12/31/96, 09:56am writes
Go to any search engine (Lycos, Yahoo, etc.) and punch in "gry".
You'll come up with several sites that lists lots of words
ending in gry. One site lists over a hundred words ending in -
gry, plus an explanation of the mistakes in the odd quiz that
usually accompanies the -gry question.
Ms. Grimes is perpetuating the wild goose chase. Yes, one site*
does list 100 words ending in "gry", and other sites (such as the
alt.usage.english FAQ) contain the same list. But the pseudo-
puzzle demands a *common* word.
None of these words are common. Many of them are not English. I am
talking about such all-time first-grade best-sellers as
aggry
bewgry
Egry (France)
ever-angry
hogrymogry
lisnagry
messagry
Schtchigry
ulgry
vergry
Ymagry
* The URL is too long for one line; join the next two lines:
http://einstein.et.tudelft.nl/~arlet/puzzles/sol.cgi/language/
english/spelling/gry
I have taken the following is taken from "The Word Detective"
website. This warning is on the home page:
--------
I have received, at last count, more than ten
zillion pieces of e-mail on this question, and I
am royally sick of it. In an almost certainly
futile attempt to stem the tide (more of a tidal
wave, actually) of "gry" queries, I have
devised a two-step therapy program for
victims of this particular affliction:
FIRST, I suggest that you pay a visit to this
page for a whole slew of possible answers.
SECOND, I offer this little essay on the
subject.
--------
"This little essay" is a link to
http://www.users.interport.net/~words1/gry.html ,
from which I excerpt the following. It is
Copyright (c) 1996 Evan Morris
--------
Conveniently for me, a collection of possible "third words" ending
in "gry" already existed, compiled by the brain-teaser mavens in
the "rec.puzzles" Usenet discussion group on the internet. It
seems that aside from words based on "angry" or "hungry" (such as
"dog-hungry"), Webster's Third New International unabridged
dictionary lists only one word ending in "gry" --"aggry," meaning
a type of prehistoric bead. But it seems quite a stretch to
classify "aggry" as a common English word. Elsewhere, the Oxford
English Dictionary, among others, also lists "gry" as a word all
by itself, meaning a very small distance (about a tenth of an inch
in John Locke's proposed decimal system). The Greek root of "gry"
is noted in the OED as possibly meaning "the grunt of a pig,"
presumably one who was offered "gry" as a solution to this puzzle.
Whether this minimalist "gry" can, in fact, be fairly said to
"end" in "gry" is an existential question, but, in any case, the
OED classifies this particular "gry" as obsolete, so it fails the
"in common use" test.
--------
Now, I hope we have put this nuisance to bed with a stake through
its heart for the last time, at least on this list, at least until
some newcomer comes running in at full tilt, waving it over his or
her head and screaming for help.
Mark A. Mandel : mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dragonsys.com
Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200
320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02160, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/