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NicholasW (pr)offers autological as a word that describes a word that describes itself suggesting to me that quasiautological would describe a word that almost describes itself.
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...and another word for autological is homological.
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I rather think that you're all being rather kind to Slovovoi's boss, in that you have assumed that he actually meant to say "stellular". I may be cynical - nay, I am cynical - but I'd say that the word falls into the same class of malapropism that "nucular" does. What the mite was trying to say, I think, was "stellar". 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Capital Kiwi>>>>
I rather think that you're all being rather kind to Slovovoi's boss, in that you have assumed that he actually meant to say "stellular". I may be cynical - nay, I am cynical - but I'd say that the word falls into the same class of malapropism that "nucular" does. What the mite was trying to say, I think, was "stellar".
There is a great possibility of that being the case. The many mis-pronouncements of the present resident of the White House should be cited as examples.
chronist
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wordcrazy notes: The many mis-pronouncements of the present resident of the White House should be cited as examples.
Now now, don't misunderestimate him.
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Agreed... We (my colleague and I) were guessing that she had a note in her calendar to call about new cellular service, or something, and it was interfering with her ability to speak clearly. "Stellar," I'm sure, was her intent.
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Is there one for a word that does describe itself?
Autological. Examples: 'short', 'English', 'polysyllabic', 'autological'.
The opposite is heterological, examples being 'long', 'monosyllabic', 'German'.
A friend suggested the term 'autophenonymous', which led me to muse as follows:
The Mystery of “Non-autophenonymous”.
Assume there is a class of words, which we shall call autophenonymous words. To be a member of the class, for any word (“*”), the following statement shall be true:
‘”*” is a * word’.
Examples of autophenonymous words are “polysyllabic”, “unambiguous” and “English”.
Some words may be autophenonymous in some years but not in others. Examples are “hot”, “cool”, and “fashionable”.
Some words may be autophenonymous in some senses but not in others. “Philosophical” is autophenonymous when used in the phrase “Goedel’s theorem poses an important philosophical problem”, but is not autophenonymous when used in the phrase “He was philosophical about his inability to disprove Goedel’s theorem”.
Some words may be autophenonymous in some contexts but not others. In the (con)text I am now constructing the following words are autophenonymous: “typed”, “unspoken”, "red".
Let us call the class of all words which are not autophenonymous, non-autophenonymous words. Some people would object to this because it combines Greek and Latin prefixes in one word. Never mind.
To be a member of the class of non-autophenonymous words, for any word (“*”), the following statement shall be false:
‘”*” is a * word’.
The fact that some words, depending on when, how or where they are used may sometimes be autophenonymous and sometimes non-autophenonymous does not challenge the proposition that every word can be classed as either autophenonymous or non-autophenonymous. It merely requires us to be rather specific about the word we are classifying.
However, the word “non-autophenonymous” is (perhaps uniquely) different. It is neither autophenonymous nor non-autophenonymous.
This can be demonstrated as follows.
Let us assume “non-autophenonymous” is autophenonymous.
If so, applying the formula ‘”*” is a * word’, it must be true to state:
‘”non-autophenonymous” is a non-autophenonymous word’.
A corollary of this statement is that ”non-autophenonymous” is not an autophenonymous word. Our initial assumption, that ”non-autophenonymous” is autophenonymous, must therefore be false.
Now let us assume that “non-autophenonymous” is non-autophenonymous. If so, then the following statement must be true:
‘“non-autophenonymous” is a non-autophenonymous word.’
However, applying the formula for non-autophenonymous words, we know that this statement must be false. Therefore, our assumption that “non-autophenonymous” is non-autophenonymous, can not be true either.
In other words “non-autophenonymous” is neither autophenonymous nor non-autophenonymous, no matter when, how or where it is used. It is, in a word, a mystery.
This mystery is an application of Goedel’s theorem, which states, more or less, that no number, linguistic or logical system is so complete that it can solve all the mysteries it can conjure up. To put it in a more positive way, any number, linguistic or logical system worth its salt is capable of generating genuine mysteries (in the sense that they’re insoluble within the system). Goedel not only formulated this proposition, but he actually proved it, and Hofstatder takes the unititiated through the proof in his book ‘Goedel, Escher, Bach – An Eternal Golden Braid’.
It’s a provocative thesis with profound theological implications: to me Goedel’s theorem suggests that not only does human consciousness formulate Big Questions which it can not ever answer, but that divine consciousness (or whatever), however easily it may be able to unravel the mysteries we humans dimly perceive, will formulate even Bigger Questions which it can’t answer either.
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>Hofstatder takes the unititiated through the proof in his book ‘Goedel, Escher, Bach – An Eternal Golden Braid’.
nice of you to credit Hofstatder, but why not stick with his words: "...we can use two terms invented specially for this paradox: autological (= "self-descriptive"), and heterological (= "non-self-descriptive"). The question then becomes: "Is heterological heterological?" Try it!"
nice try...
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In reply to:
nice of you to credit Hofstatder, but why not stick with his words: "...we can use two terms invented specially for this paradox: autological (= "self-descriptive"), and heterological (= "non-self-descriptive"). The question then becomes: "Is heterological heterological?" Try it!"
I couldn't stick with Hofstatder because after avidly reading GEB when it came out all those years ago (we should be able to date it by reference to the then extraordinary claim by the author that his was the first book ever to have been written and laid out on a personal computer) I, in a moment of foolishness, lent my copy to a person I imagined at the time to be a friend. You can imagine the rest... if you're out there - you know who you are - BRING BACH MY GOEDEL!!! 
So I had to reconstruct the argument from memory. Tsuwm's right. Hofstatder's heterological's neater than Rusty's non-autophenonymous. But hey.
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Rusty, I LOVED your circumlocuitous mind-maze squirmle!
Side-splitting, infallissailable logic, my friend. Kudos.
Just let me know who the excuse-for-a-friend is--I'll see to it that you get your book back. And with good therapy, they may regain use of their hands in just a few months...
Not returning a borrowed book--talk about deadly sin!
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