Q: Does the dictionary contain any words that do not have any vowels?

A: In Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, there are entries for three words that are not abbreviations and do not include vowels: nth, sh, and tsk-tsk.

Two words from Welsh, cwm (meaning "cirque") and crwth a word for a kind of musical instrument, are also entered in the Collegiate Dictionary, but that w is basically a vowel with a tight "u" sound.

Besides the three words listed above, there are a few terms that are recognizable to many, but they are not encountered in print frequently enough to be entered in most dictionaries, at least at this time. They are "pfft," "psst," "hmm," and "brr."

Q: If the plural of goose is geese, why isn't the plural of moose meese?

A. Goose and moose form their plurals in different ways because the words developed much differently, from different origins.

Goose is from Old English, which is the original form of English, related to German and other languages of northern Europe, and almost wholly incomprehensible to English speakers today. However, a great many Old English words are recognizable, even if the grammar and the way verbs and nouns are changed (inflected) are as complicated as Latin to modern speakers; goose is a good example.

Goose in Old English is gos, and the plural was ges, pronounced like "gase," rhyming with "chase."

Moose, on the other hand, is from Algonquian, a Native American language. The Algonquian people of course didn't use English letters, and we ended up with moose no doubt because that is what the word sounded like. The plural moose, speaking now about the English word, is a predictable parallel to other zero-plural words ( that is, plural forms that are unchanged from the base form) like deer and elk. For some reason wild game animals are commonly pluralized this way, whereas household animals are not. For example, one says "four dogs” but “three deer.”

Q: And is dude gender-neutral? Or are women properly called dudesses?

A: Dude is almost always restricted to a male. The only situation we can envision where it could include females is if one referred to a group of city "dudes" vacationing on a dude ranch. Anything more specific than that, referring to an individual, would refer to a male.

The form dudess has been used occasionally, as far back as 1885 in the Weekly New Mexican Review, according to this citation in the Oxford English Dictionary: "The dudes and dudesses of Vegas are rehearsing for the opera entitled 'The Doctor of Alcantara.'"

A few years later, Mark Twain used the form in his Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889): “Reverence for rank and title ... had disappeared—at least, to all intents and purposes. The remnant of it was restricted to the dudes and dudesses.”

“Dudess” is an uncommon term, and you are not likely to see it entered in any of our dictionaries anytime soon.