"Gherkin" — I like saying it. It's vaguely Indian sounding. "Kerfuffle." That's just fun, with so many F's packed into three syllables. "Diphthong" is sly because it's hiding a silent H, the H right ...
I promised myself that I wouldn’t mention Sisqo’s 1999 hit “Thong Song” in this article, but I’ve already done it. Avid Grammar Guy reader and fellow word nerd Dan sent me the following message: ...
Explore diphthong "oi" with Anna Scretching-Cole. Explore diphthong "oi" with Anna Scretching-Cole. A dipthong combines two vowels into a single syllable. Practice reading, blending, and writing words ...
Do you say car-a-mel or car-mel? Is your “fire” closer to fah-yer or fayr? There is a group of words in English that can be pronounced with two different syllable structures, depending on dialect, ...
I have a friend who became an English teacher mainly because of his fondness for phonetics. "To be more precise," he says. "I just like to say the word 'diphthong.' I try to plug it into every ...
Ted McCagg is a creative director in advertising in Portland, Oregon. In his spare time, for the past five years or so, McCagg has been keeping a blog,"Questionable Skills" -- the content of which ...
LISTENING to Nuala O'Connor on RTÉ's Sunday Miscellany felt like falling into the arms of a kindred spirit. Her name was always a bug bear, she confessed. It would have been better if they had slapped ...
I promised myself that I wouldn’t mention Sisqo’s 1999 hit “Thong Song” in this article, but I’ve already done it. Avid Grammar Guy reader and fellow word nerd Dan sent me the following message: ...