Word Ways
Abstract
This is the third in a series exploring meaningful word ladders, the first two appearing in the August issue. "Word Stools" is my nickname for one-step word ladders-pairs of related words differing by a single letter, e.g. indolence & insolence, the primary problems confronting teachers. They've been noted often and are the basis of amusing typos plus a true abundance of popular alliterative or rhyming phrases like tick-tock, hip hop, fat cat, brain drain, teenie weenie, nappy-happy. Like these the following pairs crash in all but one position, "high crash". A couple are charades. With one heartfelt exception, I've limited this study to pairs that are synonyms or strong affinitives, antonyms or complements, or both. Many other pairs occur within the longer ladders or articles one and four of this series, e.g., black blank, time tide, verge merge, works words, rad ray.
Recommended Citation
(2002)
"Word Stools,"
Word Ways: Vol. 35
:
Iss.
4
, Article 15.
Retrieved from:
https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/wordways/vol35/iss4/15