Saturday, February 28, 2009

Nine Letter Word



It drives me nuts that so many people have abandoned basic English in their e-mailing and online messaging. Don't get me wrong. I am no master of the English language and I am not one of those grammar snobs who have given up being polite to people in the the zealous quest for the proper use of semi-colons. But I still like to have the odd period thrown into text communications to allow me to know when to stop one thought and begin another.

But sometimes taking letters from words can be fun. What if this was the only question on the exam to pass high school English and earn your diploma. Would you graduate?

Okay you brainiacs, here is a brain teaser for you.

For instance, what 9 letter word in the English language continues to form another word each time you remove a letter from it?

The base word is: Startling

Startling - remove the L
starting - remove the T
staring - remove the A
string - remove the R
sting - remove the T
sing - remove the G
sin - remove the S
in - remove the N
I


5 comments:

Regina said...

clever girl...funny, I signed up to follow your blog and it is in my dashboard, but not showing in your blog..

tweetey30 said...

Very clever. Thanks for sharing it with us and a good laugh for the day.

Monogram Queen said...

FAR from a brainiac! LOL Butchering of the English Language bugs me too.

OldLady Of The Hills said...

That is fantastic! I never saw this before and I certainly never thought of it either...lol!

Anonymous said...

Never saw that before. My lesson of the day. I am no academic myself, but emails like : R U GNG?
Which I was later informed is: Are you going?

What? That from a 36 year old man.

No, I am staying home & READING with my cats until someone can write 3 letter words out. ~Mary