Q: Pupil of the eye as the most expansive male organ

[Jonathan Lighter]

You're right about "fleck," etc.  But "firetruck" was the answer.

  I'll bet the stipulation was "ends in -UCK."

  That would make "firetruck" the only possible answer - assuming the "other" F-word is "not a word."

  JL

"Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Joel S. Berson"
Subject: Re: Q: Pupil of the eye as the most expansive male organ
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At 6/24/2006 09:15 AM, JL wrote:
>Bill's list is far more rigorous than my classmate's. Only the first
>six riddles are familiar to me.
>
> I heard Number 2 in, I believe, the spring of 1965. It was
> rumored in my high school that the well-known frenetic host of a
> local TV "kid's show" (much watched by teens of the day for its
> absurd humor) had been fined or taken off the air for asking,
> "Kids, what's the shortest word there is that starts with F and
> ends with CK ?" The answer, of course, was "firetruck." (Check
> your 1965 dictionary !)

This puzzled me the first time I saw it here, but I let it pass. No
mas! Aren't flack/fleck/flick/flock as well as frock shorter than
firetruck? And common enough today--I ignore the four-letter "fack"
and "feck", as well as some additional but apparently very uncommon
or obsolete 5-letter words (viz. OED2).

Joel

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