Three letter rule poets such as John Milton alternated between short and long forms for function words, depending on whether they occurred on or off the meter. For instance: While many function words have more than two letters ("and", "she", "were", "therefore", etc.), the exceptions to the rule are rather two-letter content words. Only a few of these occur commonly in most texts: the words "go" (which also has a functional usage in the idiom "going to do something"), "ox" and, especially in American texts, "ax". English grammar is relatively flexible about converting words of one class to another, allowing verbal uses such
Kangaroo word Kangaroo word A kangaroo word is a word that contains letters of another word, in order, with the same meaning. For example: the word "masculine" contains the word "male", which is a synonym of the first word; similarly, the word "observe" contains its synonym "see". The etymology of the phrase "kangaroo word" is from the fact that kangaroos carry their young (known as joeys) in a body pouch. Likewise, "kangaroo words" carry their "joey words" within themselves. "Twin kangaroos" are kangaroo words containing two joey words (for example: "container" features both "tin" and "can"). In contrast, an "anti-kangaroo" word is