They're ba-a-a-a-ck -- the readers and listeners who write or e-mail or call or stop me on the street to ask: "There are three words in the English language that end in -gry. Two of them are angry and hungry . What is the third?"
The greatest service I can perform for the American people is to announce here that the gry question is one of the most outrageous and time-wasting linguistic hoaxes in our nation's history. The poser slithered onto the American scene in 1975 on the Bob Grant radio talk show on WMCA in New York City. I've tried to bury gry before, but it keeps rising, like some angry, hungry monstrosity from Tales From the Crypt.
The answer to the infernal question is that there is no answer, at least no satisfactory answer. I advise anybody who happens on the "angry+hungry+?" poser to stop burning time and to move on to a more productive activity, like counting the number of angels on the head of a pin or the decreases in our property taxes.
There are at least 50 gry words in addition to angry and hungry, and every one of them is either a variant spelling, as in augry for augury, begry for beggary, and bewgry for (buggery, or ridiculously obscure, as in anhungry, an obsolete synonym for hungry; aggry, a kind of variegated glass bead much in use in the Gold Coast of West Africa; puggry, a Hindu scarf wrapped around the helmet or hat and trailing down the back to keep the hot sun off one's neck; or gry, a medieval unit of measurement equaling one-tenth of a line.
A much better puzzle of this type is "Name a common word, besides tremendous, stupendous and horrendous, that ends in dous."
At least 32 additional dous words repose in various dictionaries: apodous, antropodous, blizzardous, cogitabundous, decapodous, frondous, gastropodous, heteropodous, hybridous, iodous, isopodous, jeopardous, lagopodous, lignipodous, molybdous, mucidous, multifidous, nefandous, nodous, octapodous, palladous, paludous, pudendous, repandous, rhodous, sauropodous, staganopodous, tetrapodous, thamphipodous, tylopodous, vanadous and voudous.
But these are arcane examples. The fourth common word is (and note the alteration in stress) . . . hazardous.
The Verbivore's Challenge for this issue is an array of letter-perfect puzzlers that are all superior to the gry ridiculousness. The first reader to e-mail the correct answers will receive a $25 gift certificate for Borders Books and Music.
The winner of the last verbivore was Jennifer Fisher who correctly guessed the real names of the following writers:
1. George Sand
2. Anatole France
3. Maxim Gorky
4. Molière
5. Voltaire
6. Stendhal