Morpho-phonologically AI
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Will Shortz, "Sunday Puzzle: Artificially Confused", NPR Weekend Edition 8/9/2025:
The theme of today's puzzle is A.I. every answer is a familiar two-word phrase or name in which the first word has a long -A vowel sound and the second word has a long-I vowel sound.
1. Numbers after six, seven
2. Shortest distance between two points
3. Fear of speaking before a large audience
4. Direct interaction with someone one on one
5. One of two things on the rear of a car
6. Two-wheeler you can pedal off-road
7. Injury that might come with venom
8. Have a short break
9. What cuts a porterhouse or T-bone
10. Increase in salary
11. Manicurist's implement
12. Astronaut's trip
13. Like cornstalks that reach halfway up the body
14. Fearsome shark
These seem easier than the weekly puzzlers usually are:
- eight nine
- straight line
- stage fright
- face time
- tail light
- trail bike
- snake bite
- take five
- steak knife
- wage hike
- nail file
- space flight
- waist high
- great white
So it occurred to me to wonder whether there's something especially easy about common phrases made up of two monosyllabic words whose vowels are /eɪ/ and /aɪ/. Here's (just) a start towards an answer to that question.
The cmudict pronouncing dictionary has 15,453 monosyllables, and 1187 of they have the EY vowel (in ARPAbet), while 925 have the AY vowel. That generates a set of 15453^2 = 238,795,209 monosyllable pairs, of which 1187*925 = 1,097,975 have the A.I. vowel sequence, which is plenty of phrases even if it's less than half a percent of the total set.
Picking pairs at random sometimes yields nonsense, like NAME NUYS or RAVE EIN, and sometimes things that make sense even if they're not idioms or fixed phrases, like JAILED PRIDE or TRAINED THAIS. The proportion of pairs suitable for Shortz's puzzle is of course very small, though there are certainly plenty more candidates than the ones he used.
What I still don't know is how the set of A.I.-voweled phrases compares with the phrases that are vocalically matched with other two-letter initialisms, like I.E. or B.O. or U.S. or M.D. I have a harder time coming up with examples in the other cases, but maybe I'm just primed by Shortz' list.
Rick Rubenstein said,
August 11, 2025 @ 5:00 pm
I couldn't resist the challenge for I.E. I came up with quite a few relatively quickly, though unlike Will's list, mine has several repeats within columns.
Extra-bright headlights
Non-productive retching
"Was I singled out by Fate?"
Chilled caffeinated beverage
Different, redundantly-named caffeinated beverage
U.K. late-afternoon meal
International waters
Kind of girder
Main ghost-costume material
Typical Phoenix weather
Illegal activity binge
Primary thoroughfare (UK)
Small amount of wind
It means you're out
Colorado mountain
Chicken breast, e.g.