isogram

Kinney Brothers Publishing uncopyrightable

OK, word nerds, this post is for you!

An isogram, also known as a nonpattern word, is a word with no repeating letters or, more broadly, a word in which the letters occur an equal number of times. This category of words can be further subdivided into first, second and third orders, words with repeating pairs, words that can be transposed, words equally divided between the first and second half of the alphabet and… well, you get the picture.

In addition to being an isogram, the meaning of uncopyrightable is ambiguous. It could mean “able of being un-copyrighted” or “unable of being copyrighted.”

Because of the paucity of 15-letter non-pattern words, attempts have been made to add to their numbers by “coining” more of them. They include misconjugatedly, hydroneumatics, and prediscountably. Possible 16-letter words are uncopyrightables and subendolymphatic.

twelve-letter isograms Kinney Brothers Publishing

Isogrammatic Orders

First-order isograms, like uncopyrightable, are words where each letter appears only once. 14-letter isograms include ambidextrously, troublemaking, and demographics.

Second-order isograms, where each letter appears twice, are Vivienne, Caucasus, couscous, intestines, and deed.

Third-order isograms, where every letter appears three times, are deeded, sestettes (a spelling variant of sextets), and geggee (a victim of a hoax).

The longest first-order isogrammatic place name, at 14 letters, is Bricklehampton, a small village in Worcestershire, England.

eleven-letter isograms Kinney Brothers Publishing

If you’re interested in more word oddities and trivia, get your favorite beverage and check out this site by Jeff Miller (who also has a pretty mean collection of dictionaries!) Peruse this compendium of online resources for wordplay, puzzlers, making word clouds, and saving endangered words.https://kinneybrothers.com/blog/blog/2020/12/22/fun-facts-89-collective-nouns/

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like to know the word with the most consecutive vowels, what makes a word autological, or where collective nouns like, “A murder of crows” come from!

Go to the previous or next Fun Facts About English.

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Kinney Brothers Publishing Fun Facts About English 28

The word “pangram” comes from the Greek root words pan, meaning “all,” and gram, meaning “something written or recorded.” A pangram is also known as a holoalphabetic sentence or alphabet sentence.

Because pangrams contain every letter of the alphabet, they are particularly useful for artists who design fonts. Calligraphers will use a pangram to display all the letters in a given typeset or when trying a new pen tip. A humorous and easily-remembered pangram is also enjoyable for children learning the alphabet.

The words in a “perfect” pangram (one in which each letter appears only once) are sometimes called non-pattern words or isograms. In such cases, sense often deteriorates proportionately with brevity and abbreviations are necessary to achieve the 26-letter goal:

Mr. Jock, TV quiz PhD., bags few lynx.
GQ’s oft lucky whiz Dr. J, ex-NBA MVP

Without the restrictions of logological perfection, here are some creative pangrams, from shortest to longest, to replace the standard 33-letter jumping fox and lazy dog:

Glib jocks quiz nymph to vex dwarf. (27 letters)
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow. (29 letters)
How vexingly quick daft zebras jump! (30 letters)
Two driven jocks help fax my big quiz. (30 letters)
The five boxing wizards jump quickly. (31 letters)
Go, lazy fat vixen; be shrewd, jump quick. (31 letters)
Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs. (32 letters)
When zombies arrive, quickly fax Judge Pat. (35 letters)
Sympathizing would fix Quaker objectives. (36 letters)
Watch “Jeopardy!”, Alex Trebek’s fun TV quiz game. (37 letters)
Amazingly few discotheques provide jukeboxes. (40 letters)
By Jove, my quick study of lexicography won a prize! (41 letters)
My girl wove six dozen plaid jackets before she quit. (43 letters)
Fred specialized in the job of making very quaint wax toys. (48 letters)
Farmer Jack realized that big yellow quilts were expensive. (50 letters)
Brown jars prevented the mixture from freezing too quickly. (50 letters)
Intoxicated Queen Elizabeth vows Mick Jagger is perfection. (51 letters)

Interested in more linguistic fun? Check out these posts about ambigrams, palindromes, portmanteaux, and mondegreens!

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A solid phonics program is vital when teaching young ESL students to read! From pre-k through elementary, Kinney Brothers Publishing offers you a complete phonics reading and writing program that includes phonics-centered activities, flash cards, and games.

Fun Facts About English #76 – The Longest Isogram

Isogrammatic Orders

Fun Facts About English #28 – Pangrams