March 25, 2018

nger

Hunger. Anger. Danger. Finger. Singer. Manger. Linger.

This confuses me.

Two words pronounced like ?n-jer. Four pronounced like ?n-ger, with a hard heavy guh. One pronounced like ?ng-er, with just a little soft baby guh.

Why?

Hungry and angry, but not dangry. Dangerous, but not lingerous, or for that matter lingry, or mangerous. (I grant that would be a real specialty word, but surely the newborn Jesus was mangerous.)

Was a finger ever something that finged? Or funged, or fung? A little man who visited James Thurber said that fungers were the past of fingers and when you said you were all thumbs, you were actually all fungers...