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Sep. 24th, 2002
Autonomic words
Sep. 24th, 2002 11:37 pmTo quote an earlier LJ comment of mine:
Some adjectives describe other words. "Bisyllabic" is an example, it describes words like "butter" and "football", but not "peg" or "antidisestablishmentarianism".
Some such adjectives have the weird property that they describe themselves: the best example I know of is "pentasyllabic". We'll call such adjectives "autonomic", because they name themselves.
What other autonomic words can you think of? So far we've thought of "sesquipedalian" and "short", and I'm sure there's a suitable word that means "word taken from another language" but I can't remember what it is. Any ideas?
Some adjectives describe other words. "Bisyllabic" is an example, it describes words like "butter" and "football", but not "peg" or "antidisestablishmentarianism".
Some such adjectives have the weird property that they describe themselves: the best example I know of is "pentasyllabic". We'll call such adjectives "autonomic", because they name themselves.
What other autonomic words can you think of? So far we've thought of "sesquipedalian" and "short", and I'm sure there's a suitable word that means "word taken from another language" but I can't remember what it is. Any ideas?