Kristina - ;-P

I can't get Scrabulous to load properly right now - maybe that's good cuz I have to do some work.

hasn’t the new(est) spelling reform done away with all those (except Schneeeule and Teeei)?

No, quite on the contrary, IIRC: while the old orthography only allowed triple consonants when they are followed by another consonant (‘Sauerstoffflasche’), now all the Duden has to say about this is to advise to separate compound words with a hyphen, in order to improve legibility (‘Sauerstoff-Flasche’). Triple vocals (‘Teeei’) always have been compulsive.

Additionally, a lot of new triples were introduced by replacing ‘ß’ with ‘ss’ in some words (Paßstraße > Passstraße, also all the other triple-s words that Tim has mentioned. It’s a ‘Missstand’!)

Btw, did you know that H&FJ did a ‘fffl’ ligature for Requiem, only to be used for that one word, ‘Sauerstoffflasche’? (and then they misspelled it in the specimen …)

I found another possible one in an old Duden: ‘Auspuffflamme’ [exhaust flame].
My favourite German triple is ‘Pappplakat’ [cardboard poster].

sexes...I like the x in the middle and the s as bookends. I want to see the last e and s as a mirror image of the first though.

Yeah, I always felt they missed the boat with symmetry. They should have called it moovoom or xiwix or wotow,...something like that.

To be honest, though … having xiw or wot with someone doesn’t sound much like a pleasurable activty.

Florian: H&FJ did a ‘fffl’ ligature for Requiem

As I understand it, German typographic convention is not to form ligatures across word-boundaries in compounds, so 'Sauerstoffflasche' would have a sequence of an ff ligature followed by an fl ligature.

I am currently collecting words containing four or more ascender letters in a row (full ascenders, so t is not counted). Can anyone here think of any, other than the German fffl examples already given and the silly Welsh llll sequence?

Auspuffflamme. Teutonic onomatopoeic genius.
How does one pronounce the triple f?

Actually, the form of the fffl ligature in Requiem is very good and arguably, by differentiating the descender of the third f, provides a nice alternative to breaking ligature formation across a word-boundary.

The coldblooded silkfly gallbladder

To be honest, though … having xiw or wot with someone doesn’t sound much like a pleasurable activty.

To clarify, I meant the word symmetry. Sex is fine as it is.

roooie: Dutch colloquialism for a 1000 NLG note.

Oh, to please Chris, some more Finnish:

ääliö (idiot)
määräilijä (bossy)
mämmi (easter dish)
kämmekkä (a plant)
Töölö (part of Helsinki)
vähälaktoosisia (low lactose, plural)
Ii and Yli-Ii (towns in Northern Finland)
tyylilyyli (stylish lady, a fun word)
tyynynpäällinen (pillow case)
Illi (surname)
ummetus (constipation)
uutuus (novelty)

John: As I understand it, German typographic convention is not to form ligatures across word-boundaries
Yes, you’re right; and yes, H&FJ seem to be aware of that.

four or more ascender letters in a row

Alkflasche coll. [booze bottle]
Fellkleid [fur coat]
Kaffklatsch – a synonym for ‘Dorfgeschwätz’? [jerkwater gossip]
Stoffblume [fabric flower]
Vollblut [thoroughbred]

One could make up a lot more compound words like these.

I found a great list of German triples, compiled by Konstantin Stephan.
Then there is the dazzling German language FAQL site by Ralph Babel. It provides us with four – at least theoretically possible – quadruples:
‘Raaaar’ – an eagle sitting on a rig, ‘Sanaaaal’ – an eel from Sanaa, capital of Yemen), ‘Unfalllloyd’ – a crashed vintage car) and ‘Zoooologe’ – an oologist working in a zoo (those words were found by Gerhard Horriar, Matthias Opatz and Martin Gerdes).

By the way, what do you think of ‘palaeooölogy’? It even has got a Wikipedia entry!

The FAQL site has even more ooddities to offer; see the ‘Rekorde’ page: For example, Richard Sokal made up a word with 15 consonants in a row, describing a combined Russian soup meal: ‘Borschtschschtschi’.

Textwrap: How does one pronounce the triple f?
Basically, not different than a single or double ‘f’. The vocal before (‘u’) is short, and one could insert a subtle pause between ‘Auspuff’ and ‘Flamme’, to make the compound clear.

Recently my favourite German word has been "Energieverbrauchskennzeichnungsverordnung".

THIS:

moist

splatter

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

«By the way, what do you think of ‘palaeooölogy’?»

Good Heavens! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a word before that required the same phonomorpheme to be pronounced three times in a row (albeit allophonically so in English). In Danish (as in German?), it would have three completely identical vowel sounds right after each other. [pʰalɛ.o.o.olo'gi:] for Paläooologie in German, right?

Mili,
I hope I was not being too määräilijä because you actually are a tyylilyyli :-)

ChrisL

«kämmekkä (a plant)»

That’s some kind of orchid, right?

I always think of kännykkä (mobile phone) when I see that word.

gnawgahyde and zanzibar are two of my faves

Chris, lol, no problem!

Oisín, yes, kämmekkä is a wild orchid. Here's Maariankämmekkä:

this efficiently concocts apricot cufflinks

Kamehameha
pod
dishonor

Mishap and misled have always bothered me.

I want them to rhyme with bishop and whistled.

nun
jiff
gyp
ingoing
edited
pygmy

balloon
zoom, boom
sound system
mini
deluxe
smooth groove