Tubular!
Language brain teasers are those that involve the English language. You need to think about and manipulate words and letters.
What is the following word?
GHOUGHPHTHEIGHTTEEAU
Answer
POTATO!
GH sounds like P in Hiccough.
OUGH sounds like O in Dough.
PHTH sounds like T in Phthisis.
EIGH sounds like A in Neighbor.
TTE sounds like T in Gazette.
EAU sounds like O in Plateau.
The title was another subtle hint.
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Comments
gilco  
Jul 17, 2005
| Wow that's so clever!  |
vikingboy  
Jul 17, 2005
| kind of cute, but a couple of misleading clues.
the ough makes the P sound in hiccough.
The phth makes a TH sound in phthisis..the first sylable of phthisis is pronounced phi, with a long i.
When teh first clue is off, it makes the rest kind of tough to get.   |
DancAllNiteLong
Jul 17, 2005
| The title really wasn't much of a hint.....  |
phrebh
Jul 17, 2005
| The OUGH in hiccough makes the UP sound, not the P sound.
The first syllable in phthisis, PHTH, can be pronounced either TH or T, not PHI.
And like I said, the hint in the title was VERY subtle.  Strangely enough, phthisis is an archaic term for tuberculosis. |
vikingboy
Jul 18, 2005
| nah, you're changing the rules of grammer.
Can't split the sylables up like that...the gh in hiccough only makes the sound that the total sylable consists of "ough" makes the up sound.
and, phthisis is not pronounced t-sis, and it is a wasting away that is part of TB, but not TB. The nurse that lives in my house clarified that for me! we call her mommy. |
phrebh
Jul 19, 2005
| You can split up syllables like that. Do you say that PH in physics only sounds like F if you include the Y? Of course not.
Also, check dictionary.com. The T is correct and the fact that phthisis is an outdated name for TB is also correct. |
gorillazgirl
Jul 19, 2005
| Awesome job on that one too!! Alot of your teasers rock!!!  |
cnmne
Sep 04, 2005
| I knew it had something to do with the pronunciation of letter combinations, but I had no idea of what the word was. |
smarty_blondy
Sep 22, 2005
| Good job with this one phrebh, quite clever which made it chalenging as well. I'd like to see more of these as i really enjoyed it. |
sweetime
Oct 19, 2005
| heh i had no idea about the hiccough thing phrebh.
i always assumed that hiccup (the australian spelling) had the p and the hiccough was literally a hic-cough pronounciation  |
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