Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 May 31

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May 31

EMU, TRIO, TARE

Is there a term for words, such as in the subject line, that tend to find their way into word games at a much higher rate than their normal usage would indicate? I'm playing Wordscapes right now, which has brought it top of mind, but there are similar kinds of situations with most word games. Sometimes, as in Wordscapes (broadly similar to Boggle in its method of constraining words), it's caused by those words containing letters very commonly used. In other cases, such as with crossword puzzles, the rigid spacing requirements sometimes make uncommon words or even non-word abbreviations and initialisms very useful. Many a crossword maker has had to throw in an ENE to keep the grid clean. Is there a term or terms for such things? Matt Deres (talk) 14:45, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Filler words? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:11, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

One analyst uses crosswordiness to mean "the quality of appearing more often in a crossword than in real life", so I suppose such words could be said to be crosswordy. Deor (talk) 17:25, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Crosswordy, eh? I like that. :-) Matt Deres (talk) 13:37, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

In case you didn't follow all the links in the article I linked, here is the Guardian's guide to calculating crosswordiness, with a table of the crosswordiest words. Deor (talk) 17:56, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I've heard, and used myself, both "crossword words" and "Scrabble words" for these. --76.71.5.208 (talk) 03:28, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Of slight relevance is the case of Komol Panyasophonlert from Thailand, a world English Scrabble champion who can't speak English, [1] and Nigel Richards, a New Zealander who is the world French Scrabble champion but can't speak French. [2] Alansplodge (talk) 11:19, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

To quote from our Scrabble article, "The memorization of [all permitted 107] two-letter words is considered an essential skill in this game". (My insertion.).--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:57, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Digressing, I remember when MS Word's spell-check dictionary did not have EMU but did have NOOLBENGER. Doug butler (talk) 04:22, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Southern-accented Arizonans

In the film Raising Arizona, all the characters speak in broad southern drawls. Am I correct in thinking that this is inaccurate to the Arizona setting? My understanding is that Arizona is part of the Western American English zone, and that the local speech is fairly close to General American. It occurs to me that other films set in Arizona have also portrayed locals as southern-sounding, including Kingdom of the Spiders, so apparently there's an idea in Hollywood that Arizona is part of the south. I've never been to Arizona, so I wouldn't know. Is there a distinctive local dialect? LANTZY^TALK 21:57, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

My personal experience is that Arizona speech would not be particularly out of place in rural California, but there could be some subtle differences. Southern accents don't sound particularly unusual to me (my mother was from Mississippi) so I may not be the best judge.

But as to the film, I don't think it's clear that it's even set in Arizona. It's been years since I've seen it so I'm not at all sure of that. But I think the Arizona in the title is from the surname of the baby they steal. --Trovatore (talk) 22:29, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

After a little Googling, it appears that it was set in Arizona after all. You might enjoy reading this newspaper article. It says "The Coens saved time on research by doing none", and specifically mentions dialect and accent. --Trovatore (talk) 22:46, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

It was not a documentary. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:12, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Steven Spielberg, Linda Ronstadt & David Spade are examples of people with "Arizona accents" as I know it (as a long-time AZ native). One of the few giveaways is "hundred" = "hunnerd". 2606:A000:1126:28D:5518:6C20:BCD2:2607 (talk) 01:20, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Oh? I casually say things like four hunner dollars, and I've spent maybe three days in Arizona ever (moving from Illinois to California in 1966, moving from California to Illinois in 1969, and visiting Navajo country in 1998). —Tamfang (talk) 02:35, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Non-GA accents in Arizona likely resemble the Inland California accent found in places like Bakersfield. In Raising Arizona, that isn't the accent they are using; the characters basically riff off of Holly Hunter's native Georgia accent, with no effort to recreate anything similar to rural Arizona. However, there are "Southern" elements to those actual accents, as noted in the article I linked. --Jayron32 14:01, 2 June 2020 (UTC)