Auto-followers

I admit that I'm somewhat of a word nerd (have ya heard?), which will come as no surprise to those who know me. I dabble in puns and have a hard time holding them back, regardless of how cringe-inducing they may be. I'm also fascinated by language and its oddities. I think about things, get stuck thinking about them, then subject my friends and relatives to these (usually completely unimportant) ruminations.

There is one language train of thought though that has captured people's interest much more than any other: Auto-followers. I don't remember exactly how or when this started, but the basic premise is that there are certain words that are only used to preceed other specific words. That is, they have "auto-followers" after being uttered. (Sidenote: Somewhere along the process, we incorrectly started referring to the first words as "auto-followers", and even though that doesn't make sense, tradition trumps accuracy in this case. I don't say that often, trust me.) Every once in a while, a friend will ask me to call upon the list of auto-followers (AFs from here on out) and I have a hard time remembering more than two or three. It's been a group effort from the onset, but I'm taking the lead and using this space to officially get the AFs down somewhere for future reference.

One of the best examples, and possibly the one that started the whole trend, is "scantily." The beauty of true AFs is that I don't need to tell you what word comes after it. I can't even think of an example of how else is could be used, even though it never is. "The hole in the ground was scantily covered by leaves" is the closest I can come up with right now, but even that sounds pretty off to me.

I will call "scantily" a Class 1 AF, meaning the truest of the true to me and those who have discussed this lingual phenomenon with me. Class 2 AFs would be ones that definitely lead you to a thematic answer, but the actual word could change. For example, I normally think of "torrential" as a Class 1 AF, but I've had people reply with both "downpour" and simply "rain." Even though it's clearly "downpour" to me, my family, and several friends, since not everyone replies with that, I'm making it a Class 2. Same family of response, but not the same exact word.

Another Class 2 AF is "noxious." Again, I thought this was a Class 1 until a few people replied with "odors" instead of my automatic "fumes" response. Definitely the same idea, but not universal enough for the lofty Class 1 status.

Here is a short list of AFs that I believe to be Class 1:

Scantily
Furtive
Hermetically
Crotchless
Furrowed
Corrugated

(Another sidenote: My friend Dave likes to be the contrarian of the group at times, so when asked about "crotchless" years ago in college, he replied, "Roommate!" and pointed to our roommate Greg. I don't think that's enough evidence to warrant a Class 2 ranking.)

AFs are hard to come by. People often think they've found one, only to be rebuffed at their first attempt to elicit a response. For example, "pearly" seems good on the surface. People usually think of a word immediately, but that word could be either "white" or "gates." Since those words aren't related, I think that takes "pearly" out of the discussion completely.

The rest of the ones accumulated over the years are not yet classified. Some I believe to be quite true, but I need more input before being more certain. If anyone's reading this, please comment on what you think about the listed ones, add your own if you think of any, and let the fun with words begin.

Categorically
Supple (if not for "Pinball Wizard" by The Who, I think we'd have a Class 1 here)
Vehicular (I'm sure in legalese there are several uses for that word, but I think of one)
Mitigating
Irreparable
Duly

Have at it, gentle readers.