Examination of the Raartong Language VI: The Intoxicational Affix—J. S. S. van der Fort SpecGram Vol CLXI, No 1 Contents

Word Relations

Jonathan van der Meer
l’École de SpecGram, London

Each of the sentences below contains two words that have a special relationship. Your job is to identify the relationship in question, and the pairs of words in each sentence for which the relationship holds.

  • I balk at the expense of the onyx.
  • You vex me! You irk me!
  • Used ova go in this bin.
  • Can you give tang to a gnat?
  • To be or not to be?
  • The pigs are pent on the crag.
  • How do you nag an ant?
  • She likes fur.
  • Try this new hair gel!
  • Neither George nor Abe went.
  • They envy our rail.
  • She studies the Gur language family.
  • Who would feed pho to a tiger cub?
  • The clerk prefers to cook with Pyrex.
  • We’re going to the ABBA concert at noon.
  • Study Phon. in Cuba for only $3 a day!
  • He thinks of himself as an ur-linguist.
  • Her role as abjurer got her nowhere.
  • We snuck up on an erne from the rear.
  • Why is the navy interested in blue anil dye?
  • Let’s go to the bar and have a cold one.
  • We’re biologists—we collect hern urea!
  • We warily approached the lush green jungle, terra incognita.
  • Her parents ate some bad becuna and now she’s an orphan.
  • My Chechen friend has developed a bad case of purpura.
  • She uses the variant spelling, Tyrr, with a perverse glee.
  • He asked me out and I replied ab imo pectore, “no!”
  • Just flap your lips in sync with the music, Britney.
  • Fill the vat with water from the river by the ing.
  • In Chaucer’s time, they used gurl for any child.

If you think you’ve figured it out, send your solutions to the editors of SpecGram by March 15th, 2011. If your answer is correct, you could win a SpecGram magnet of your choice. The correct solution and winners, if any, will be announced in the April issue of Speculative Grammarian.

Examination of the Raartong Language VI: The Intoxicational AffixJ. S. S. van der Fort
SpecGram Vol CLXI, No 1 Contents