3. The questions are designed to be relevant to speakers of English worldwide, not just in the United States. Designed badly, then, in my view. Most of the questions seem to relate to purely American linguistic oddities. I do ... Hello,

Remarkably, that gentle valedictory provoked a flood of letters. (Well, eight letters.) In a sense it was much adieu about nothing, Perhaps he means Much ado about nothing. Adieu is a French word use to salute someone whom one expects never to see

wrote: ^(2/3) is exponential and slower than linear. Actually, that's not exponential: an exponential function has x in the exponent, not as the base of the exponent. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom Hasn't anyone consulted the dictionary yet?

True. But they share at least one thing in common: they're distinct. And I think they share other things in common too. For example, "ah" is never rounded; "ah" is never to the back of "aw". "Ideal" by

If you say that to me, you say nothing. As a description of a sound, "aw" has no useful meaning. But I think it does have some useful meaning to the community of CINC AmE speakers. I think if you were CINC you'd understand. I doubt

y = x ^(2/3) is exponential and slower than linear. Actually, that's not exponential: an exponential function has x in the exponent, not as the base of the exponent. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom Hasn't anyone consulted the dictionary yet?

If I want you to use the vowel of your ... order to accomplish that? What would you suggest I write? Before I made a suggestion, I would want to be persuaded that there was some good reason for you to want me to use a vowel when you don't know

Southern? I'm from Massachusetts, which is nearly as non-Southern as you can get, and I have /E/ in 'be able' "can". In my kind of talk, in the sense you mention, can falls into the "short i" category (Us usage).

In classical Latin pronunciation as understood today, "C" would be ... if that was a long vowel and the otherwise. I didn't think the Romans did stress. I thought (in poetry at least) it was all to do with long and short vowels -

I'm pretty sure that's how it's supposed to be sung. ... intended for, those for whom "adieu" doesn't rhyme with "you". How could they not rhyme? Uh-DYOO and YOO rhyme one way or another. The words