Wordplay Wednesday 6/20

[errhode]

I think I've come up with the common quadruple homophone...
.
.
.
.
air, heir, err, ere

And one of the greek letter ones:
nu, new, knew, gnu

And one of the regular alphabet letters:
U, you, ewe, yew... which led me directly to a quintuple homophone U's, yous, ewes, yews, use. This assumes that pluralizing letters can be done (I sure do it in Scrabble) and that mob slang is acceptable (as in "Hey, yous guys!").

[Antproof]

I'll offer one of the scale degrees:





do, doe, dough, d'oh

[grodney]

I think I got the slang term related to sexuality (so to speak):




bi, buy, bye, by


p.s. where and wear are a regional homophone? Really? (As in, where *don't* they sound the same?) We've probably discussed this before, I suppose.

[jbenz]

I thought I had the other greek letter quartet (had to pluralize it):

psis, sighs, size, and sais

But I just learned the plural of sai is sai. I can't believe I had not already learned this from Raphael and the other turtles.

[Ponch]

I'll offer one of the scale degrees:





do, doe, dough, d'oh

Actually thought I had the scale degrees:

sol, so, sew, sow

[EDIT] I see Ken said two possible answers now! D'oh!

[skullturfq]

p.s. where and wear are a regional homophone? Really? (As in, where *don't* they sound the same?) We've probably discussed this before, I suppose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonologic ... ine_merger

There may be a generational factor as well as a regional factor. My mother and grandmother were both born and raised in Western Canada. My mother was born in the 1940s and my grandmother was born in the 1920s. My mother pronounces pairs like "wine/whine" and "witch/which" the same, but my grandmother distinguished them.

[immaf]

I think I've got the breed of dog quartet:



peke, peek, peak, pique

[Paucle]

A French familial loanword? = pere, pair, pare, pear

[Paucle]

BTW, this is the WW to which everyone's responding:

Wordplay Wednesday! English is full of homophones: words spelled differently but pronounced the same, like “cymbal” and “symbol,” or “to,” “too,” and “two.” A quadruple homophone is even rarer, especially if you insist on words that only have one identical pronunication (this would discount regional homophones like “where” and “wear,” or “pause” and “pours.” It’s sometimes said that there’s only one common, uncapitalized set in English–can you think of it?

But if you include other less common words, there are many other homophone quartets in Merriam-Webster’s 11th. Which one requires you to use these iffy fourth words? (Some may be pluralized.)

A slang term for a certain dog?
A French familial loanword?
A Scottish geographic loanword?
A slang term related to sexuality?
A back-formation verb from science labs?
A spelled-out name for a letter of the alphabet?
A note of the diatonic scale? (two possible answers)
A Greek letter? (two possible answers)

[Paucle]

Could the spelled out letter be cue, queue, kew, and however Q is spelled?

[timtjarks]

Another scale note (pluralized): ti's, teas, tees, tease

[Paucle]

What's the consensus on metal/ meddle/ mettle/ medal? Homophones only if not enunciated?

[A Wray]

What's the consensus on metal/ meddle/ mettle/ medal? Homophones only if not enunciated?

That's an example of regional homophones; it works only in North America and Australia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intervocalic_alveolar-flapping

[Ken Jennings]

Some nice work here. Some random notes off the top of my head:

By "spelled-out letters" I didn't mean things like "Q" and "U's." They're actual words like "aitch" or "pee."

"Sol" isn't pronounced "so."

D'oh isn't in M-W yet, though it's (famously) in the OED now.

Err/heir/air/ere doesn't technically count by my rules, since "err"'s homophonic pronunciation isn't its only possible one. So no one has actually mentioned the canonical quadruple homophone of four common, no-alternate-pronunciation words. Or at least not the CORRECT one.

[Dobie]

Apparently WRONG WRONG doesn't work.

[Neel Mehta]

Given Ken's hint, it has to be

right/rite/wright/write

I was hoping that there would be an iffy fourth word option for "Common Latino name mispronounced by well-meaning gringo," which would give us: hoes/hos/hose/Jose

[jbenz]

By "spelled-out letters" I didn't mean things like "Q" and "U's." They're actual words like "aitch" or "pee."

Maybe then the answer is the plural form of the letter "C"?

Cees, sees, seas, and sieze?

[PhygLeGuy]

A back-formation verb from science labs?

Got nothing for this one, other than a fervent wish for bunse to become a verb, meaning to set something or someone ablaze with a Bunsen burner.

[Muskrat]

A back-formation verb from science labs?

Got nothing for this one, other than a fervent wish for bunse to become a verb, meaning to set something or someone ablaze with a Bunsen burner.

Lase/Laze/Leis/Lays?

[kdguitar61]

Ive got one of the diatonic scales....




Sol, sole, soul, Seoul

It might even be a quintuplet. I read somewhere that soal means "a dirty lake"...