Technically, a number of consonants in English can take on vocalic qualities. L is often pronounced as a vowel when not stressed and even sometimes when stressed (for example–little, pronounced by me as ['lI.tl]; the ‘l’ is unstressed and the vowel is either a very weak schwa or nonexistent). R is often a vowel if you don’t speak a dialect that doesn’t roll it.
So, by my dialect (American English, fairly generic, but with a little less reduction to schwa and a bit more reduction to other central vowels) words like pull are phonetically without a proper vowel in rapid speech.
And ‘Mrs.’ is presumably an abbreviation of ‘mistress’, once the accepted feminine to ‘mister’.
I thought Mrs. was an abbreviation of Missus. . .that ain’t right?
It’s a weird abbreviation, including a letter that isnt’ in the original word, but does that mean it’s not an abbreviation?
Ms., AFAIK, is a separate word, pronounce “mizz” and used for when Mrs. does not apply and “Miss” is too condescending.
I snipped this rom dictionary.com. it sounds like Ms is a word unto itself.
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Usage Note: Many of us think of Ms. or Ms as a fairly recent invention of the women’s movement, but in fact the term was first suggested as a convenience to writers of business letters by such publications as the Bulletin of the American Business Writing Association (1951) and The Simplified Letter, issued by the National Office Management Association (1952). Ms. is now widely used in both professional and social contexts. As a courtesy title Ms. serves exactly the same function that Mr. does for men, and like Mr. it may be used with a last name alone or with a full name. Furthermore, Ms. is correct regardless of a woman’s marital status, thus relegating that information to the realm of private life, where many feel it belongs anyway. Some women prefer Miss or Mrs., however, and courtesy requires that their wishes be respected.**
Can we give this a “wrap”? After a couple of years?
::: Polycarp assumes Hat of Pontification :::
Words which are spelled with “semi-vowels” are not vowelless. Just because Y and W are not always vowels does not mean that they cannot function as vowels when that is their assigned task in a given word. (It might be noted that several of the “real” vowels occasionally function as consonants, as in U in the “Qu-” combination or the Mayan ruined city Uaxactun (pronounced very similarly to “Washington,” amusingly enough) or “iatrogenic” (meaning “caused by the ministrations of a physician”), where the I carries a semiconsonantal Y sound.
Onomatopoetic words should really be ruled out of contention. If “Psssk!” is the sound your soda bottle makes when it opens, to your hearing, fine, but don’t press it on us as a “real word” in the sense of “commonly agreed-on set of sounds and/or alphabetic symbols carrying an arbitrary referential value.”
Nth qualifies; the N carries an “enn” sound in much the same way as Czech semivowel R carries an /-ur-/ sound (the U actually being a schwa).
