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At the Reference Desk: Commonly Asked Questions - Page 2

© Gillian Davis

**Note: October 2001 - Looks like eHow now requires free registration**

"What are the three English language words ending in ‘gry’. “Angry” and “hungry” are two of them..."

Answer: For the longest time I had no idea why people would want to know this. I had seen it talked about on Stumpers and various reference-related listservs and discussions, but not until I was actually asked it myself did I really research the answer.

In a nuthsell, it's a trick question. The question is really a riddle. Since the IPL answers this question so completely (note they got most of their answer from the wonderful Stumpers list), and I couldn’t even attempt to explain it better than they, I will quote from their FARQ (at some length) for you here:

[start of quote]

"For reasons that we can't determine, the "-gry question" is turning up again and again from our patrons. The best and most comprehensive answer to it comes from the Stumpers discussion list for reference librarians, and we quote from it below.

Here is the question in its correct "puzzle" form. "Think of words ending in -gry. Angry and hungry are two of them. There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word? The word is something that everybody uses everyday. If you have listened carefully , I've already told you what it is."

The secret here is that the real question is "There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word?" That is, there are only three words in the phrase "the English language". The third word is "language", which is indeed something we use every day. The first two words are "the" and "English".

Having found the answer to the actual riddle, however, you may still wonder if there are any other English words ending in -gry. There are. The intrepid reference librarians of Stumpers found the following answers to the question:

For a very long list of -gry words, including places and other proper names, see the Solution to the /language/english/spelling/gry problem in the rec.puzzles Usenet group's Language Puzzles Archive. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, five words in the English language end in -gry. In addition to the common angry and hungry:

· aggry, a glass bead found buried in the earth in Ghana.
· puggry, a light scarf wound around a hat or helmet to protect the head from the sun, and

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