[Ads-l] That "words ending in -gry" puzzle (early-ish sighting, 1974)

Sun Jul 19 23:58:20 UTC 2020

The 1918 citation seems to me like a classic example of "If it's too good to be true, it probably is not true."

Fred Shapiro

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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Baker, John <JBAKER at STRADLEY.COM>
Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2020 7:40 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: That "words ending in -gry" puzzle (early-ish sighting, 1974)

The OED's 1918 source for "hangry" is a 21st century transcription of a letter, presumably handwritten, by Arthur Ransome before he wrote his famous Swallows and Amazons books for children.  The book, The Last Englishman: The Double Life of Arthur Ransome, by Roland Chambers, is available on Google Books in searchable form, https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fbooks%2Fedition%2FThe_Last_Englishman%2FDz52LHkQLeEC&data=02%7C01%7Cfred.shapiro%40yale.edu%7C5cd1aaed92e04f4af97c08d82c3d3947%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C637307988752273215&sdata=HzbZrMOOgGQdtdIzHvRIUwNW2PAeg67G%2FttdgfMyl9A%3D&reserved=0.  The letter is on page 209 and is addressed to Ransome's eight-year-old daughter when Ransome was serving as a foreign correspondent in Russia.  The relevant sentence reads:  "All my beasts are well:  the hen, the owl, the peacock and the elephant (although as you can see from the picture the elephant is very hungry and hangry from having had no dinner)."  We don't have an image of the letter, but a transcription error is certainly possible.

The next cite in the OED is from 1956 and appears to be solid.

John Baker

From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> On Behalf Of Shapiro, Fred
Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2020 5:10 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: That "words ending in -gry" puzzle (early-ish sighting, 1974)

External Email - Think Before You Click

Could the 1918 citation be a typo?

Fred Shapiro

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Subject: Re: That "words ending in -gry" puzzle (early-ish sighting, 1974)

"Hangry" is now in OED3 (Jan. 2018 update) with a first cite of 1918, but
it's only become frequent enough in the past decade or two for it to be a
potential solution for the "-gry" puzzle.

hangry, adj.
Etymology: Blend of hungry adj. and angry adj.
Bad-tempered or irritable as a result of hunger.
1918 A. Ransome Let. 28 May in R. Chambers Last Englishman (2009) xv. 209
The elephant is very hungry and hangry from having had no dinner.
1956 Amer. Imago 13 381 More complicated samples [of contraction]:
slabor for slave labor, meducation for medical education.., hangry for
hungry and angry.
1994 J. Harkins Bridging Two Worlds vi. 162 A monster was described in
a story as hangry... When asked whether it was angry or hungry, the author
replied 'Yes'.
2005 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 1 Dec. g5 Those who say their hunger frequently
morphs into anger describe themselves as 'hangry'.
2017 Daily Rec. & Sunday Mail (Nexis) 21 May 32 Hangry passengers stuck
on a train that was delayed for three hours ordered in pizza.

"Hangry" does get a mention in the Wikipedia mention for the puzzle, which
Bonnie linked to.

https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F-gry_puzzle&data=02%7C01%7Cfred.shapiro%40yale.edu%7C5cd1aaed92e04f4af97c08d82c3d3947%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C637307988752273215&sdata=BlwiVwMwRsRnoSKB4oRpTjRHLQb%2BEq8kcNOPs7eqPmA%3D&reserved=0<https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F-gry_puzzle&data=02%7C01%7Cfred.shapiro%40yale.edu%7C5cd1aaed92e04f4af97c08d82c3d3947%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C637307988752273215&sdata=BlwiVwMwRsRnoSKB4oRpTjRHLQb%2BEq8kcNOPs7eqPmA%3D&reserved=0>

On Sun, Jul 19, 2020 at 11:01 AM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu<mailto:laurence.horn at yale.edu>>
wrote:

> I searched through Bonnie's links and didn't find the solution I would now
> propose, as opposed to the metalinguistic "solutions" mentioned by Michael
> Quinion et al. In recent years, I've come across in fictional narratives
> many (or at least several) uses-not mentions, but actual uses-of "hangry",
> often explained as a blend of "hungry" and "angry", or glossed as "so
> hungry I was angry", or the like. Crucially, in each case no reference is
> made to the riddle. So at some point, there is a third -gry word, although
> whether it's frequent enough to count as a common word is harder to
> determine.
>
> LH
>
>
> > On Jul 19, 2020, at 8:38 AM, Bonnie Taylor-Blake <
> b.taylorblake at GMAIL.COM<mailto:b.taylorblake at GMAIL.COM>> wrote:
> >
> > I am certain that some of you know much more about this puzzle's history
> > than I, but I thought I'd try looking for early mentions of the
> > brainteaser. Perhaps this is something that will whet the appetites of
> the
> > hungry, angry antedaters here.
> >
> > (If you're unfamiliar with the "words that end in -gry" puzzle, see, for
> > example, Michael Quinion's analysis at
> > https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.worldwidewords.org%2Farticles%2Fgry.htm&data=02%7C01%7Cfred.shapiro%40yale.edu%7C5cd1aaed92e04f4af97c08d82c3d3947%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C637307988752273215&sdata=YZUB8OPd9k8tH%2BSuy1PgcRidIXk6%2FRIx83fubXDKSNI%3D&reserved=0<https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.worldwidewords.org%2Farticles%2Fgry.htm&data=02%7C01%7Cfred.shapiro%40yale.edu%7C5cd1aaed92e04f4af97c08d82c3d3947%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C637307988752283208&sdata=U4gbuGzCINJnwBVwTwlD%2BC0UwyYJu51iv%2BNaZXUwfDQ%3D&reserved=0> and a Wikipedia entry at
> > https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F-gry_puzzle&data=02%7C01%7Cfred.shapiro%40yale.edu%7C5cd1aaed92e04f4af97c08d82c3d3947%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C637307988752283208&sdata=3MssHlxn1qUdZOrj3LU4RmvOxT0uNxKP63DNT71KPN0%3D&reserved=0<https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F-gry_puzzle&data=02%7C01%7Cfred.shapiro%40yale.edu%7C5cd1aaed92e04f4af97c08d82c3d3947%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C637307988752283208&sdata=3MssHlxn1qUdZOrj3LU4RmvOxT0uNxKP63DNT71KPN0%3D&reserved=0>.)
> >
> > I should mention that the Wikipedia page notes that Merriam-Webster first
> > learned of this puzzle via a letter dated 17 March 1975, but the page
> also
> > observes that this may date back to the '50s. Further (and elsewhere),
> Lois
> > Aleta Fundis reproduced a message from 1999 to the old Stumpers list that
> > mentioned finding the "gry puzzle" in a pamphlet suspected, but not
> > confirmed, to have been printed sometime in the '40s. (Lois noted in 2006
> > that she had not been able to put her hands on any such publication.)
> >
> > https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsites.google.com%2Fsite%2Flfundisriversnorth%2Flfundisgrywords&data=02%7C01%7Cfred.shapiro%40yale.edu%7C5cd1aaed92e04f4af97c08d82c3d3947%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C637307988752283208&sdata=A6Yxrx8tpurvcBGCVQEJG0WVAED4IOIX%2FBrZidVbMUA%3D&reserved=0<https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsites.google.com%2Fsite%2Flfundisriversnorth%2Flfundisgrywords&data=02%7C01%7Cfred.shapiro%40yale.edu%7C5cd1aaed92e04f4af97c08d82c3d3947%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C637307988752283208&sdata=A6Yxrx8tpurvcBGCVQEJG0WVAED4IOIX%2FBrZidVbMUA%3D&reserved=0>
> >
> > So, in the momentary absence of printed versions from the '40s (or
> later),
> > I give you a mention of the puzzle that very slightly predates that in
> the
> > 17 March 1975 letter to Merriam-Webster.
> >
> > What follows isn't much of an improvement, but it demonstrates that
> "-gry"
> > was on the mind of the Atlanta Constitution night city-desk by early
> > September, 1974.
> >
> > -- Bonnie
> >
> > -------------------------------------
> >
> > THIRD 'GRY'? The city desk gets many calls for information please. Night
> > city editor Jim Bentley relayed this one.
> >
> > Someone on the phone wanted to know if the city side could name the third
> > word in the English language that ends in "gry." He cited "hungry" and
> > "angry" as the other two.
> >
> > The night city desk did not have the answer. Nor do I, not yet. Do you?
> The
> > phone is 428-5150.
> >
> > [In Leo Aikman's "He Now Faces the Music," The Atlanta Constitution, 4
> > September 1974, p. 5-A.]
> >
> > ---------------------
> >
> > GETTING ANGRY: If that fellow who called night city editor Jim Bentley
> > asking the third word in the language ending "gry" was pulling our leg,
> if
> > there is no such word, some of us are going to join the "12 angry men."
> We
> > are hungry for the answer. A few have called saying the challenge has
> them
> > "climbing the wall."
> >
> > [In Leo Aikman's "No Longer Even a Smile," The Atlanta Constitution, 11
> > September 1974, p. 5-A. Aikman referred to the puzzle again in his 20
> > September column and reported on a reader's suggestion of another "gry"
> > word.]
> >
>

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