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by **dslifton** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:16 am

One of my favorite baseball players not on my team was Aurelio Rodriguez because he had all five vowels in his name. That was really cool to a nine-year old. He was a great third baseman and it was also fun to say his name back in the day.

Probably the person with the shortest name to contain all five vowels is actor Len Cariou, who won a Tony Award in 1979 for Sweeney Todd.

by **Ken Jennings** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:29 am

Wow, Aurelio was one 'a' away from having both his names be five-vowel words.

by **dslifton** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:32 am

The missing "a" was obviously embedded in his "arm." Dude had a cannon.

by **econgator** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:37 am

So, Ken, did you realize 'Vocal quintets' fits the bill itself? I'm gonna guess 'yes'.

Some of the answers:

3. Seaborgium
5. The only one I can come up with is Tourmaline, but that's not one of the generally accepted ones, is it?
8. Education

by **Ken Jennings** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:45 am

All three correct. (Yeah, that birthstone isn't on some lists, but birthstones are all made up anyway.)

A new one I just noticed: the only world capital.

by **Harmony** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 11:07 am

Here's #1: Rosalind Russell (1942 for My Sister Eileen)

You wouldn't believe how many words I am spelling in my head, thinking of the rest of these.

Oops, I am totally wrong. She was first nominated in 1942, but didn't actually win!

How about Julia Roberts, then?

by **Ken Jennings** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 11:14 am

Correct. Hmmm, Rosalind Russell is pretty good though.

by **DadofTwins** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 11:30 am

The world capital is Buenos Aires, Argentina. (ETA: Or maybe not.)

Mozambique is the country.

Question: Does the "sports franchise" include the city/state name, or just the nickname?

ETA: Never mind. I think I've got it. Washington Bullets.

by **malonetd** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 11:34 am

"The Chicago Bulls" and "The Buffalo Bills" both work if you include "the", but that's stretching it a little.

by **Harmony** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 11:39 am

Buenos Aires has 2 Es in it. It's close, though!

by **Ken Jennings** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 11:51 am

Correct on the "the-less" sports franchise. Very nice coming up with the country! I actually thought there was no country whose short name qualified (missed Mozambique somehow) which is I why I specified the full name. There's another country that qualifies if you use the whole "Dominion of Canada"-style long form.

by **econgator** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 11:56 am

The capital is Port-au-Prince and the country would be Republic of Chad

by **Harmony** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 11:58 am

The Billboard hit is "I'm Your Angel" by Celine Dion and R Kelly (what a combination!)

There's a Y in there, but it's not being used as a vowel, so that's ok, right?

by **malonetd** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:00 pm

Is Republic of Chad the full-name country?

by **Harmony** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:01 pm

And the novel is Uncle Tom's Cabin!

by **DadofTwins** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:06 pm

So you were looking for Republic of Chad?

by **Ken Jennings** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:06 pm

Harmony wrote:The Billboard hit is "I'm Your Angel" by Celine Dion and R Kelly (what a combination!)

There's a Y in there, but it's not being used as a vowel, so that's ok, right?

That is the only AEIOUY song, so well done, but there is an AEIOU song as well.

by **Ken Jennings** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:06 pm

Correct on the novel and the full-name country. But I still think Mozambique is better.

by **malonetd** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:13 pm

The song: I Get Around

by **Ken Jennings** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:24 pm

Very nice, that's all 8. Did you brute-force the song or did it actually occur to you?

by **malonetd** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:33 pm

Ken Jennings wrote:Very nice, that's all 8. Did you brute-force the song or did it actually occur to you?

I had "assistance."

by **Harmony** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:39 pm

I do not want to admit how many hot 100 lists I scoured, and I didn't even find the song. Embarrassing!

by **spackest** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 4:37 pm

Aided by an electronic dictionary (which I am guessing is far from complete) and some good old perl, I found 760 such words. Just out of curiosity, I looked for words where the vowels appeared in order and got

abstemious
abstemiously
abstentious
arsenious
arteriosus
facetious
facetiously

Wow. That's VERY interesting!

by **polarea** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 5:59 pm

spackest wrote:Aided by an electronic dictionary (which I am guessing is far from complete) and some good old perl, I found 760 such words. Just out of curiosity, I looked for words where the vowels appeared in order and got

abstemious
abstemiously
abstentious
arsenious
arteriosus
facetious
facetiously

Wow. That's VERY interesting!

Cool! I thought I remembered something about there being only one word in the English language that had them in order, but couldn't think of the word (I think it was facetious), but now you've definitively proved that truism wrong.

by **bwouns** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 6:34 pm

I had heard that about facetious, but I believe it was phrased as the shortest word that fit the criteria. But I guess arsenious is tied.

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