By Dates, Vowels

Another opinion... From the Gregg Reference Manual: When words taken from other parts of speech are used as nouns, they are usually pluralized by the addition of s or es. Ifs, ands, or buts Dos and don’ts Yeses and nos Ins and outs Ups and downs Yeas and nays Pros and...

--- There was formerly a respectable tradition (17-19c) of using the apostrophe for noun plurals, especially in loanwords ending in a vowel (as in We do confess Errata's, Leonard Lichfield, 1641, and Comma's are used, Philip Luckcombe, 1771) and in the consonants s, z, ch, sh, (as in waltz's and...

OK. Now I'm all confused! Let me try these in SAMPA, but adding i and u for 'half-tense' vowels. I'm leaving out the \ after all those r's. Here's (I think) how I pronounce these (if anyone even cares at this late date!). "we, we're, we'll, we've, we'd; beer, feel, fill, wheel,...

W: I am addressing the nature of the consonance/vowel controversy in the teaching of poetry. In most cases, assonance has a tendency to slow a line down. Try to say Poe's ". . . weary, way-worn wanderer . . ." fast. So often, assonance holds the tone and holds the sound. Consonnance and...

It's difficult to characterize some of these unstressed vowels as either u in but or i in kit. I find that the vowel I use is something between u in but and i in kit in words like elucidate and validate. I use something closer to i in kit for solid, valid, and fluid -- almost exactly the...

1. Do you pronouce validate , elucidate, solid, valid, fluid, etc. as the short vowel u as in rut or but, or as the short vowel i as in bit or kit? 2. Do you pronounce cabinet, hornet, booklet, magnet, voilet, piglet, pamphlet, etc. as the short vowel u as in rut or but, or as the short vowel...

1) How long is a piece of string? Exactly 27.82cm. Anything other this is either shorter or longer than it should be. 2) Who Said an Orange should be called an Orange , and not a Window? First, windows weren't invented back then. Second, it was almost called a Green because long ago, at the...

I found the following at: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=peace+of+mind&searchmode=none peace Look up peace at Dictionary.com 1140, "freedom from civil disorder," from Anglo-Norm. pes, from O.Fr. pais (11c., Fr. paix), from L. pacem (nom. pax) "treaty of peace,...

I am continually stunned by the fact that so few sources seem to realise the logic that lies behind their own rules. I have heard whacky rules that suggests that ancient or biblical names ending with s are exceptions, or words of more than one syllable ending with s. The 'eez' thing here is at...

The verb "get" came from the Old North "geta" and the verb inflected like; geta - gat - getten. The past participle "getten" or "gotten" (a new variant of "getten" generated by vowel shift) had been used down to the 16th century. However, during the 17th century, the past tense form "got" (which...