A roll, or a role is a droll questionnaire, while not dire it’would require a poll to set me square.
Why are there so many words of power that start with the labial-dental voiceless fricative “F”? Fire, Fight, Fie, Fright, Flight, Feign, Fame, Flame, Fraught, Fought, First, F*ck, Flick, Foundry, Front, Fail. Even when you consider the importance of other words does this still hold true… Farm. Fragrance, Friend, Fool, Felony, Frustration, Full. Frown.
I think it derived from the tension built up in the pressure of the fricative that delivers the intensity of the word with which it is used. It would rarely be used to start a word of weakness, like pillow. But it would be placed later in the word to balance weakness with an inherent strength hidden in what might at first appear weak… like Soft, Safe, Wife, Swift, Maleficence.
Is there strength with the PH words? Perhaps these are the weaker exceptions to the rule… maybe. Mephistopheles. Metaphor, Photon, Phrenology.. well anything ending in ology is automatically weak. It’s crap. Ha ha ha.