I didn’t think of as many phrases as I thought I would, so I’m sure there are more out there. Toss and turn just came to me a few minutes ago, for example.
Here’s my list of 14 T__ and T__ phrases: tall and thin, thick and thin, this and that, through and through, time and temperature, toil and trouble, Tony and Tina, toss and turn, trash and treasure, trials and tribulations, tried and true, tux and tails, twist and turn, and two and two.
In all, there weren’t as many famous people as I thought whose initials are BG. My list of 16 names is below, and a few people who I consider more obscure are below that.
Eerily, Bill Gates’s birthday is today, and when I looked up Brian Austin Green, to remind myself who he is (most famous for his Beverly Hills 90210 role), there was a news item about him from an hour ago. Coincidence??
The list: Bill Gates, Bobbie Gentry (a stage name), Boy George (also a stage name), Barry Gibb, Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top lead singer), Bernard Goetz (the “subway vigilante”), Barry Goldwater, Benny Goodman, Berry Gordy (founder of Motown record label), Betty Grable, Billy Graham, Brain Austin Green (who is really BAG), Bryant Gumble, Bob Guccione (Penthouse founder), Ben Gurion, and Buddy Guy (blues musician).
More obscure names include Ben Gazzara (actor), Bob Geldof (Irish singer and activist), Ben Gillies (musician), Bill Goldberg (professional wrestler), and Bob Greene (Oprah’s trainer).
Here are my 17 words that contain the consonants CLR, in that order:
Éclair, caller, calorie, celery, cellar, clayier, clear, cloyer, cluer, coiler, collier, collar, color, cooler, couloir, culler, and ocular.
A couple of obscure words that work are coalier (more coal-like) and celure (a drape or canopy).
The two phrases that started me thinking were “water cooler” and “water color.”
Here are my answers to the Constant Consonants challenge from Monday. I found 23 words:
Asset, east, oast, oust, sat, satay, sate, sauté, seat, set, settee, sit, site, soot, sooty, sot, suet, suit, suite, stay, stoa, sty, and stye.
There are a couple of obscure words too, like sotie and suety. Of course, you might consider oast and satay to be obscure as well, but I think they are vaguely familiar as “crossword puzzle words.”
I found a few more opposites that begin with the same letter than I expected. My rule was this: If you asked someone, “What’s the opposite of X” they should answer “Y” and then your pair X, Y would count. Here’s my summary:
Awake / asleep; boom / bust; concave / convex; do / don’t; entrance / exit; fact / fiction; (no G); heaven / hell; (no I, J, K, or L… any ideas?); maximum / minimum and major / minor; naughty / nice (unsure about that one); on / off; parallel / perpendicular; (no Q); rise / run; sunrise / sunset; thick / thin; (no U); virtue / vice; wax / wane; (no X); yin / yang; and zig / zag.
Here is my list of words for the RST Constant Consonants puzzle posed on Monday (I found 15):
Airiest, arrest, eeriest, erst, reseat, rest, risotto, roast, roost, roseate, rosette, roust, russet, rust, and rusty.
In addition, there’s resto (obscure for an antique, or the remainder), and Rasta (which is capitalized and doesn’t count).
I’m sure there are plenty more two-word phrases out there that all begin with the letters C__ C__, even including the rule that the second letter also be the same in each word, as I opted to modify the normal rules. Since Monday, I’ve thought of 26 phrases. Here they are:
Cable car, calling card, camera case, can can, candid camera, candy cane, Cape Canaveral, carrot cake, cat call, cat carrier, cheddar cheese, chocolate chip, choke cherry, chump change, Circuit City, class clown, Coca Cola, cock’s comb, cold comfort, color code, Colorado College (and several more), common cold, computer code, corn cob, credit crisis (and credit crunch), and criss cross.
I didn’t add as many words to my initial list as I thought I would.
Here are my 23 words that contain the consonants NT in that order, and no others: aint, annuity, ant, ante, anti, aunt, auntie, innate, into, natty, neat, net, nit, not, note, nut, nutty, oint, onto, unit, unity, untie, and unto. Obscure / questionable words include: neato, nite, and nyet.
My final list has 15 words: auburn, bairn, barn, baron, barren, born, boron, brain, brainy, bran, braun, brine, briny, bruin, and burn.
Some obscure words that fit the rules include breen (a brownish green, honest!), burin (a steel rod), and bourn.
Also, here are six names that use only the consonants B, R, and N, in that order: Barney, Bernie, Brenna, Brian, Brianna, and Bruno. Then there’s Borneo and Brunei.
My list of Constant Consonants for the letter RR has only 10 words: airier, arrear, aurora, eerier, error, rare, rear, roar, ruer, and ryer. Strangely, oarer (one who uses an oar) doesn’t show up in the dictionary, but oarier (more like an oar) does.
I also found only 10 phrases that fit the pattern R__ and R__: Rack and ruin, rant and rave, rest and relaxation, rhythm and rhyme (dubious), rise and run, risk and reward (and risk and return), rock and roll, rough and ready, and rules and regulations. There’s a comic strip called Red and Rover, but I’m not sure how widely known it is.
