My Aunt Matilda is a very peculiar relative, a woman of strong likes and dislikes. For example, my Aunt Matilda likes apples but not oranges and tennis but not golf. She likes supper but not lunch and butter but not margarine. She likes waffles but not pancakes and jazz but not rock.
It took me awhile to realize that Aunt Matilda likes words that contain double consonants. In fact, all of my Aunt Matilda’s steadfast opinions can be explained by the patterns and sounds of letters in words. You can test your sense of logic and pattern by trying to figure out my Aunt Matilda’s likes and dislikes. Examine each cluster and state the reason for my Aunt Matilda’s preferences.
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Aunt Matilda likes aardvarks but not anteaters, bees but not wasps, boots but not shoes, vacuum cleaners but not mops, rooms but not closets and beets but not turnips.
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Aunt Matilda likes hats but not helmets, coats but not jackets, rings but not bracelets, soup but not crackers, beans but not asparagus and pie but not éclairs.
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Aunt Matilda likes sports but not athaletics, restaurants but not pizzarias, seniors but not sophmores, commerce but not bussiness, spelling but not grammer and floors but not cielings.
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Aunt Matilda likes birthdays but not anniversaries, cupcakes but not pastries. suitcases but not luggage, freeways but not roads, baseball but not hockey and airplanes but not trains.
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Aunt Matilda likes oboes but not clarinets, picnics but not outings, downtown but not uptown, voodoo but not magic, redheads but not blondes and singing but not dancing.
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Aunt Matilda likes mom but not grandma, dad but not grandpa, a Toyota but not a Honda, noon but not night and radar but not television.
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Aunt Matilda likes pets but not dogs, golf but not tennis, pool but not billiards, rats but not mice, flow but not ebb and desserts but not snacks.
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Aunt Matilda likes seas but not oceans, pains but not aches, carrots but not potatoes, maize but not corn, lye but not bleach and thyme but not parsley.
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Aunt Matilda likes detergent but not bleach, mascara but not makeup, lipstick but not rouge, condors but not falcons, murmurs but not whispers and Mississippi but not Georgia.
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Aunt Matilda likes algebra but not geometry, stones but not rocks, gabbing but not gossip, trout but not salmon, health but not illness and pomp but not circumstance.
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Aunt Matilda likes chestnuts but not walnuts, armies but not navies, legends but not myths, hippies but not protesters, chinchillas but not mink and ribbon but not trim.
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Aunt Matilda likes bulldozers but not tractors, dogmas but not rules, cowards but not heroes, oxygen but not nitrogen, ramparts but not walls and ratatouille but not jambalaya.
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Aunt Matilda likes bees but not wasps, seas but not oceans, ease but not comfort.. peas but not corn, ewes but not cows and teas but not coffees.
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Aunt Matilda likes Julia Roberts but not Jennifer Lawrence, Rosalind Russell but not Katherine Hepburn, Bela Lugosi but not Boris Karloff, Rutherford Birchard Hayes but not Grover Cleveland, Ambrose Burnside but not Stonewall Jackson and Grace Metalious, but not Barbara Cartwright.
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Aunt Matilda likes a teepee but not a wigwam, an essay but not a report, a kewpie but not a Barbie, ivy but not holly, ziti but not penne and envy but not jealousy.
- Answers
My Aunt Matilda likes 1. words that contain double vowels 2. one-syllable words 3. words that are spelled correctly 4. compound words, which combine two or more words 5. words that contain internal rhyme
6.palindromic words, spelled the same forward and backward 7. reversagram words, which spell a different word when read backward 8. homophones, which sound just like another word with a different spelling 9. words in which only one vowel appears repeatedly 10. words that begin and end with the same letter 11. words that start with syllables that name parts of the body 12. words that start with syllables that name animals 13. words that sound like the plurals of letters in the alphabet 14. people whose names contain the five major vowels — a, e, i, o and u 15. words that consist entirely of letter sounds