f-f-freezing doesn't count

July 29, 2008 11:24 AM

Tariff: Are there any other words in English that include two Fs next to each other?
posted by Pants! to writing & language (62 comments total)

offal
posted by wenestvedt at 11:30 AM on July 29, 2008

truffle
posted by zippy at 11:30 AM on July 29, 2008

Traffic, giraffe, iffy, ruffle...there are zillions of them. Ending with ff? Off. Naff. Starting with ff is tougher, but Irish names like ffrench and ffolkes are out there.
posted by bink at 11:30 AM on July 29, 2008

Traffic. Coffee.
posted by Sticherbeast at 11:30 AM on July 29, 2008

Sheriff
posted by rentalkarma at 11:32 AM on July 29, 2008

Taffy.
posted by fiercecupcake at 11:33 AM on July 29, 2008

I eat toffee in the office -- I'm affluent, because I won an official raffle.

Really, there are lots of these, aren't there?
posted by randomination at 11:33 AM on July 29, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

There are a lot, here's a pastbin dump of running grep ff linux.words (that is, on the Unix word dictionary). There are some effective duplicates (it has both affair and affairs for example), and some are names, but it's a pretty decent list nonetheless.
posted by skynxnex at 11:34 AM on July 29, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

I'm baffled by this question. Off to quaff some beer.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 11:34 AM on July 29, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Offer, proffer.
posted by Penelope at 11:34 AM on July 29, 2008

Gaffe? The Great Taffy Gaffe of Ought-Eight?
posted by fiercecupcake at 11:34 AM on July 29, 2008

You can generate a complete list of words on OneLook with the search term *ff*. Narrowing the search to "Common Words" is probably more useful.
posted by roger ackroyd at 11:34 AM on July 29, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

The obvious - off?
posted by cgg at 11:35 AM on July 29, 2008

Your search for *ff* matched 1670 words in this word list
posted by Mach5 at 11:39 AM on July 29, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

offend
offensive
efficient
efficiency
affable

So, you know, squillions. :)
posted by DWRoelands at 11:39 AM on July 29, 2008

Someone not have enough caffeine this morning?
posted by piedmont at 11:40 AM on July 29, 2008

This question mad me a little huffy, but the feeling went away in a jiff. And then I went away in a skiff to smoke a spiffy spliff.
posted by box at 11:41 AM on July 29, 2008

I wonder if maybe someone hasn't put in that much effort thinking about it. :)
posted by Citrus at 11:42 AM on July 29, 2008

'Made,' not 'mad,' but what's the difference?
posted by box at 11:43 AM on July 29, 2008

Are there any other words in English that include two Fs next to each other?

Affirmative.
posted by ormondsacker at 11:46 AM on July 29, 2008 [6 favorites has favorites]

What a strange kerfuffle over words.
posted by pixlboi at 11:51 AM on July 29, 2008

Skiffle, piffle, sniffle.
posted by ludwig_van at 11:55 AM on July 29, 2008

Quaff, stiff, ruffle...
posted by chan.caro at 11:56 AM on July 29, 2008

"iff" itself is a playable word in Scrabble. It means "if and only if".
posted by trip and a half at 11:57 AM on July 29, 2008

mastiff.
posted by millipede at 11:57 AM on July 29, 2008

$ grep ff /usr/share/dict/words | wc -l
1734

At least 1733 others.
posted by zamboni at 11:58 AM on July 29, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

For more unusual double letters, check out this page (it's long, so do a "Find in Page" for "double letters".) Examples of more uncommon ones are bathhouse, hajj, vacuum, savvy, glowworm, and piyyut.
posted by Johnny Assay at 12:00 PM on July 29, 2008

bookkeeper
posted by trip and a half at 12:01 PM on July 29, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

$ grep ff /usr/share/dict/american-english |wc -l
972

http://pastebin.com/f16535c0e
posted by cmiller at 12:10 PM on July 29, 2008

WTFF? There are about 3800 of them.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 12:11 PM on July 29, 2008

Well, that's including compound phrases.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 12:13 PM on July 29, 2008

personally i think this question is chaff filter.
posted by lester at 12:16 PM on July 29, 2008

Coffee.


Good use of your question.
posted by BobbyDigital at 12:16 PM on July 29, 2008

Duff, doff and toff.
posted by electroboy at 12:28 PM on July 29, 2008

FFS, people!
posted by gingerbeer at 12:30 PM on July 29, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Though the question's long been thoroughly answered, I can't resist: effect/affect.

Related to Johnny Assay's answer above, there's a store near my house called Saavy, which was clearly meant to be called Savvy. It makes me crazy.
posted by dizziest at 12:30 PM on July 29, 2008

I don't know if you'll be miffed or chuffed when I say this question should be snuffed.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:37 PM on July 29, 2008

Enough words to make it worth the time and effort of ye olde type setters cut ff ligatures.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:50 PM on July 29, 2008

Bailiff. Plaintiff. Etcff.
posted by numinous at 12:51 PM on July 29, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Suffolk
posted by leotrotsky at 1:01 PM on July 29, 2008

Pfft.
posted by oneironaut at 1:03 PM on July 29, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Tiffany.
posted by Memo at 1:04 PM on July 29, 2008

this is an effing easy question.
posted by craven_morhead at 1:14 PM on July 29, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

On the topic of other letter combinations - a little scripting and /usr/share/dict/words gave me the following:

qq:%0.00181491497123 jj:%0.00362982994247 yy:%0.00725965988493 vv:%0.0217789796548 uu:%0.0471877892521 ww:%0.10345015336 kk:%0.127044047986 hh:%0.134303707871 aa:%0.215974881577 zz:%0.490027042233 ii:%0.760449372947 bb:%1.67516651845 dd:%1.87299225031 gg:%2.05811357738 cc:%2.76593041616 ff:%3.15069239006 mm:%3.65705366704 pp:%3.66612824189 nn:%4.33038712136 tt:%5.83313671754 rr:%6.57906677072 ee:%7.21610192562 oo:%8.4792827456 ll:%20.6464727128 ss:%26.1565545654

55099 total matches from 234937 words.
posted by mce at 1:31 PM on July 29, 2008

staff?
posted by liketitanic at 2:25 PM on July 29, 2008

Or stuff...
posted by amicamentis at 2:42 PM on July 29, 2008

Effusive. Effluvia. Effervescent.
posted by liketitanic at 2:46 PM on July 29, 2008

Scoff!

I like this game.
posted by liketitanic at 2:46 PM on July 29, 2008

Huffing and puffing.
posted by Dec One at 2:54 PM on July 29, 2008

Buffalo! yay me
posted by schwab at 3:10 PM on July 29, 2008

Ruffian!
posted by Cobalt at 3:53 PM on July 29, 2008

Muffin. Cuff. Tuffet. Buff. Duff. Guffaw. Huff. Kerfuffle. Puff. Puffin.

Did you really think that there was only one?
posted by amro at 4:34 PM on July 29, 2008

Nah, he probably just figured he could sit on his duff while somebody else did the effort.
posted by box at 6:32 PM on July 29, 2008

Whuffles.
posted by box at 6:53 PM on July 29, 2008

Ineffable.
posted by ob at 6:55 PM on July 29, 2008

Man, I thought with 50+ comments, surely someone would have mentioned 'effigy' by now.
posted by tractorfeed at 7:50 PM on July 29, 2008

Mmmmmm waffles.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 7:58 PM on July 29, 2008

Muff.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:38 PM on July 29, 2008

Muff.

Buffoon!
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 10:12 PM on July 29, 2008

Sincerely, this question leaves me baffled.
posted by owtytrof at 9:53 AM on July 30, 2008

does this count?

sorry :(
posted by thatguyryan at 6:08 PM on July 30, 2008

morewords.com followup - words with two 'ff's

Your search for *ff*ff* matched 4 words in this word list

* chiffchaff
* chiffchaffs
* riffraff
* riffraffs

None with three or more.
posted by zippy at 12:58 AM on July 31, 2008