The words "carioca" and "orator" exhibit a similar pattern: both words consist of two identical groups of letters and another group of letters between them.
Let’s look for more English words of similar structure (MNM - each group should consist of 2 or more letters).
Plurals and proper names not allowed.

What is the longest word fitting my description ?

(In reply to computer exploration by Charlie)

Charlie,

Having seen your answer, I vaguely remember seeing something like this before, where 'undergrounder' was the longest with 5 repeated letters.

Generally, I feel that those that just exploit Latin prefixes/suffixes don't have quite the same AHA! quotient as those where the repeat is coincidental, but the latter seem to be quite rare (and often borrow-words like carioca or galangal) possibly because the reduplication of sounds is avoided in English other than in informal expressive vocabulary (chitchat/claptrap/choochoo). Contrast other e.g. SE Asian languages where the formation is quite common, for example to create the plural.

 

 

Posted by broll on 2010-10-30 05:01:33