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National Review, Sept 27, 1999

Use "*gry." The "*" permits the search for any set of letters, including none. However, this seems to overwhelm the spell checker. It works well to search one letter at a time-use "a*gry," then "b*gry," and so on.

My search turned up only two words, angry and hungry.

This spell checker is said to contain 274,000 definitions and 496,000 synonyms--all of them from Merriman-Webster--admittedly not a complete dictionary.

Perhaps I can say that there are no further occurrences of words ending in -gry in common usage.

Sincerely yours, George Opdycke

Bryan, Ohio

Dear Mr. Buckley: This little puzzle has been going around for several years. The question is best expressed verbally: "Angry and hungry are two words that end in -gry. There are three words in the English language. What is the third word?" The answer is "language." The trick is that the question contains a set of implied quotation marks, and would be written: "Angry and hungry are two words that end in -gry. There are three words in 'the English language.' What is the third word?" The real question is: "What is the third word in the phrase 'the English language'?"

John A. Murphy San Antonio, Tex.

Dear Mr. Buckley: This is a trick question. It must be spoken rather than written. Your interlocutor asks you, "Can you think of any word besides hungry and angry that ends in -g or -y?" Thinking he said -gry, you are perplexed and end up writing a letter to the nation's leading language maven at National Review.

Sincerely,

Gloria Johanns Naperville, Ill.

Ladies, gentlemen: Many thanks! And I shan't go one day more without getting a Franklin MWD-440.

Cordially,

-WFB