by Harold Fox

In the preceding number of “Calling All Verbivores” (CAV) you were challenged by two puzzlers from Will Shortz. First,

Name two parts of the body that are pluralized not by adding an s to their names but by changing their vowels.

That is an easy one, just for a warmup. Here is a more difficult one.

The word MARINE consists of five consecutive, overlapping state postal abbreviations—Massachusetts (MA), Arkansas (AR), Rhode Island (RI), Indiana (IN), and Nebraska (NE). Can you think of a common seven-letter word that has the same property? Hint: The first letter is also M.

Both of those are from Shortz’s The Puzzlemaster Presents 200 Mind-Bending Challenges From NPR®, Random House, 1996, numbers 148 and 156, respectively. The solution for the first is TOOTH and FOOT, the plurals of which are TEETH and FEET. The solution for the second is MALARIA from Massachusetts, Alabama, Louisiana, Rhode Island, and Iowa.

How many one-letter words do you know? No, that is not the puzzler for this month. Maybe you think of three right away, “I” and “a” and “O” (with neither apology nor apostrophe, on the authority of Shakespeare and scads of other poets). You might think a dictionary of one-letter words would be a candidate for the list of “The Shortest Books in the World.” If so, think again.

In past numbers of CAV I have referred occasionally to books of particular interest to verbivores, but only seldom have I devoted an entire number to a single book. This one joins that short list of my single-book offerings. The book is One-Letter Words: a Dictionary, by Craig Conley, HarperCollins, 1996, ISBN 0-06-079873-4 (so there!).

Conley disabuses us of the “Shortest Books” notion very quickly with his assertion that there are 1,000 one-letter words, a retort that has led to many a barroom bet (op. cit., xv). His dictionary provides the evidence for that assertion. Here is a template for definitions that should open up the possibilities for you:

n. The _______ letter of the alphabet.

where the blank space is to be filled in with the appropriate ordinal from “first” through “twenty-sixth.” That gives you 26 one-letter words right off the bat.

Aha, you must be saying to yourself, but call those things words? “Well, why not,” he could reply. What is a word? His definition is this: “…a word is any letter or group of letters that has meaning and is used as a unit of language.” (Ibid.) You might have the initial response that I had—has he just smuggled in the crucial identification? So I went to my unabridged dictionary and found these two definitions for “word.”

7. a speech sound or series of them, having meaning and used as a unit of language: …
8. a letter or group of letters, written or printed, representing such a unit of language. (Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, Second Edition)

I guess he’s got us. His definition is certainly congruent with those. In addition, we have to admit readily that “a” meaning the first letter of the alphabet is a different word from “a” meaning the indefinite article. Likewise, “i” meaning the ninth letter of the alphabet is a different word from “I” meaning the personal pronoun. And, thus, we are off and running.

Conley has organized One-Letter Words: a Dictionary in the familiar fashion, first alphabetically with a section for each letter. Within each section he gives definitions, examples, and categories of meanings. For example, for A he begins with a sub-section with this heading, A IN PRINT AND PROVERB (3) Henceforth, page references will be only to the Dictionary and consist of the numeral in parentheses. Continuing with A, the first two entries in this section are the following:

1. (phrase) A per se means “a by itself makes the word a.”
2. (phrase) Not to know A from B means to be ignorant.
“ How are your brains?” “I know A from B and two plus two,”
I answered him. …—Karen Cushman, Matilda Bone (3)

Also, there are two entries in forms that become standardized for each letter:

9. n. A written representation of the letter.
10. n. A device, such as a printer’s type, for reproducing the letter. (4)

The next sub-section heading is POINTS IN TIME AND SPACE, which contains seven more entries, including

12. n. The first letter of the alphabet. Her embarcation card, filed under A, had eluded the search made by the harbor police.—Georges Perec, Life: A User’s Manual. (5)

In all, Conley gives us 52 entries for A, including some from these categories: music, designations, shapes and sizes, miscellaneous, scientific matters, foreign meanings, and facts and figures.

Moving on to other letters, here are a few entries that illustrate the variety and breadth of usage for one-letter words. Let’s begin with some entries for E.

28. n. A shoe width size (narrower than EE, wider than D)
30. n. (mathematics) The natural number e, used as the base for natural logarithms and with applications in problems of population growth and radioactive decay. (45)
41. n. E is the most commonly occurring of all letters. A is third, O fourth, I fifth, and U comes in a distant twelfth. (48)

The eighth letter, H, rates a pair of significant entries under the heading SCIENTIFICALLY SPEAKING.

24. n. (physics) The Planck constant h is the proportion between the total energy and frequency of a photon (a single quantum unit of electromagnetic energy such as light or heat radiation).
26. n. (chemistry) The symbol for the element hydrogen in the periodic
table. “Think you could swim in heavy water?” “H two O two? Very buoyantly, I imagine.”—Iain Banks, The Business (71)

A single example for the letter I is one of three found under the heading FACTS AND FIGURES.

44. n. Most of Emily Dickinson’s poems (over 150 of them) begin with the word I. For example, “I heard a Fly Buzz When I Died.” (81)

However, entries for Q are most notable to me for not including one familiar to us all. That is, Q meaning question, as in “There will be a Q and A session after the presentation.”

Entries for X certainly deserve a mention, if only because that section, like that for Q, has a notable omission. First, here are a couple that do appear:

19. n. A precise point on a map or diagram, as in “X marks the spot.” X marks the place where victims fall/as well as buried treasure. — Rebecca McClanahan, “X” (205)
24. n. An indication of where to sign one’s name. “ Sign there,” he says, his dirty finger on the red X.—Edward Abbey, The Fool’s Progress. (206)

There is no entry with x-ray as the example, despite the fact that Conley includes this one:

52. n. A unit of radioactive wavelength . (210)

I hope these example entries at least give you some idea of the scope and flavor of this book. Many of Conley’s literary illustrations are longer than those I have quoted, and I chose not to quote them simply in consideration of space. Their variety makes the book a good one to have readily at hand, for occasional browsing. Or, if you are tired of buying your own drinks, it might be a good investment to carry with you as the clincher when you engineer barroom bets about the number of one-letter words. The book is handsomely produced in a compact format and printed in red and black on cream-colored paper. I am determined to add this unique dictionary to my personal library.

Until next time, send me your solutions (or suggestions or complaints or stumpers) at hfox@juno.com or 2005 Burroughs Drive, Dayton, Ohio 45406.