# Post Something Interesting About English **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 23, 2017, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836 "2017-03-23T15:46:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/101 "2017-03-24T14:57:26Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I think the confusion came about because you weren’t explaining what you meant all that well. That’s just, like, your opinion, man. ---
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/102 "2017-03-24T14:57:52Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > The letter P represents three different phonemes in English, but English speakers cant hear the difference. Speakers of some languages can. > > Tear off a little inch-long strip of paper, and put it just in front of your lips and say “pin” and “spin” and “nip”. When you say “pin” you blow out a strong puff of air,and a much weaker puff when you say “spin” and none at all when you say “nip”. But to an English speaker, they all sound the same. But doesn’t that mean that they’re _allophones_ in English, not different _phonemes_ ? ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/103 "2017-03-24T15:03:17Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > That’s just, like, your opinion, man. 🙂 Out of curiosity, would you say Hawaii has the same ending sound as angry or pedigree? ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/104 "2017-03-24T15:09:56Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > This. “Canoes” may as well be spelled “canews”. It can be and often is, but not correctly. “News” is pronounced “nyooz”. Canadians consider “nooz” to be an Americanism, but Americans don’t hear the difference. Dictionaries give both pronunciations for “news”, but only one for “canoes”. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/105 "2017-03-24T15:12:21Z")
Benny Hill gag: Guy arguing with wife: It’s Huh-VI-yuh! Wife: It’s Huh-WY-yuh! They ask a stranger: Huh-VI-yuh! or Huh-WY-yuh!? Stranger: Huh-VI-yuh! Guy: Thank You! Stranger: You’re Vel-cum! ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/106 "2017-03-24T15:20:58Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > It can be and often is, but not correctly. “News” is pronounced “nyooz”. Canadians consider “nooz” to be an Americanism, but Americans don’t hear the difference. Dictionaries give both pronunciations for “news”, but only one for “canoes”. I read the nyooz today, oh boy. Canadians (most anyway) pronounce news the same way Americans do. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/107 "2017-03-24T15:36:00Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Out of curiosity, would you say Hawaii has the same ending sound as angry or pedigree? Well, going by the pronunciation at Wikipedia, neither. It has a longer vowel sound than angry/hungry but a shorter one than pedigree. Trying to think of a word that (to me) has the same end sound as angry/hungry, “softly” comes to mind. Or “Gently” as in the character with the first name Dirk. (And by “end sound” I’m not necessarily taking about a whole syllable–I’m talking about possibly something more like a [mora](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mora_%28linguistics%29).) ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/108 "2017-03-24T15:39:41Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > It can be and often is, but not correctly. “News” is pronounced “nyooz”. We’re a bit off the point of my thread here. “News” is not pronounced “nyooz” by everyone. Maybe it is pronounced that way by some people, but certain I don’t pronounce it that way, nor do people around here (oh, I’m in Canada, by the way) generally do so. “Canoes” sounds, to my ears, exactly like “ca news.” Perhaps in England they say “nyooz,” which is fine. Here they don’t. That’s what “accents” are. Pronunciation in English is quite varied and declaring “this word is pronounced this way” is probably going to end up being a dumb statement. Things are not pronounced precisely the same by all English speakers. Unless you’re talking about something that is routinely truly misspoken - “diphthong” and “diphtheria” being obvious examples - it’s best to assume that if someone says it’s pronounced a certain way, that’s actually how it’s pronounced where they are from. **If you want an interesting pronounciation fact:** The stereotypically-assigned-to-African-Americans habit of saying “axe” instead of “ask” is actually the way it was commonly said centuries ago; the Old English “acsian,” which means the same thing, is the source of the word, and was often shortened to “acs” or “ax” and was a common way of spelling it until the days of William Shakespeare. ---
**Author:** ![RobDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f07891/32.png) [@RobDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobDog)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/109 "2017-03-24T15:43:32Z")
> [@RobDog](#): > > Here’s something interesting. Any thread about interesting things about English will consist of 3% interesting things and 97% people nitpicking each other’s posts. Told you so. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/110 "2017-03-24T16:14:25Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > No, that angry and hungry have very short vowel sounds at the end but pedigree has a long, extended vowel sound at the end. Do you mean “short vowel sound” in the common sense of the word? “Y” doesn’t have a short vowel sound associated with it. It can make a short “i” sound as in “gym.” SOme people might pronounce a terminal “y” with a short “e” sound as in “history” pronounced “historeh.” What short vowel sound do you hear “y” making in “angry”: the “e” from “bet”? The “i” from “Jim”? Or some other short vowel sound? I’m wondering if you mean that the sound just take a short time to make, i.e., it’s an unstressed syllable. Is that what you’re saying? If that’s what you mean, a lot of the confusion is because you’re using the word “short” next to “vowel sound” to mean something very different from what “short vowel sound” usually means. ---
**Author:** ![Wednesday\_Evening](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b2d939/32.png) [@Wednesday\_Evening](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wednesday_Evening)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/111 "2017-03-24T16:17:42Z")
> [@Wednesday\_Evening](#): > > Buffalo buffalo, Buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo. > [@furryman](#): > > I think wikipedia made this up. If you went up to somebody and said that would they understand you? As a matter of fact, just looking at that sentence here I can’t understand what you’re trying to say without looking it up. Well, I never said it was used in regular conversation. 😃 It does make sense though! You have to know that the verb buffalo is a synonym for intimidate. “Buffalo from the city of Buffalo intimidate other buffalo from Buffalo, but are themselves intimidated by another group of buffalo from Buffalo.” I got it from this Mental Floss post: [7 Sentences That Sound Crazy But Are Still Grammatical](http://mentalfloss.com/article/49238/7-sentences-sound-crazy-are-still-grammatical) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/112 "2017-03-24T16:20:35Z")
There was this one time I was talking with Bishop Desmond Tutu, and he was complaining to me about a time he has to wait for a train: it was supposed to arrive at 1:58, and it was four minutes late. I commiserated, having experienced the same problem: “I had to wait from two to two to two two too, Tutu!” ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/113 "2017-03-24T16:27:09Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > There was this one time I was talking with Bishop Desmond Tutu, and he was complaining to me about a time he has to wait for a train: it was supposed to arrive at 1:58, and it was four minutes late. I commiserated, having experienced the same problem: “I had to wait from two to two to two two too, Tutu!” That reminds me of the time I caught the four-four for Forfar before changing to the five-five to Fife. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/114 "2017-03-24T16:44:04Z")
My favorite weird fact about our language is that “bless” [has the same root as “blood”](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=bless), because it originally referred to sprinkling an altar with blood. Whenever I sneeze and someone says, “Bless you!” I fleetingly imagine a nasty spray. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/115 "2017-03-24T16:46:21Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > There was this one time I was talking with Bishop Desmond Tutu, and he was complaining to me about a time he has to wait for a train: it was supposed to arrive at 1:58, and it was four minutes late. I commiserated, having experienced the same problem: “I had to wait from two to two to two two too, Tutu!” A tutor who tooted the flute tried to teach two young tooters to toot. Said the two to the tutor, “Is it harder to toot or to tutor two tooters to toot?” ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/116 "2017-03-24T16:46:56Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Do you mean “short vowel sound” in the common sense of the word? “Y” doesn’t have a short vowel sound associated with it. It can make a short “i” sound as in “gym.” SOme people might pronounce a terminal “y” with a short “e” sound as in “history” pronounced “historeh.” What short vowel sound do you hear “y” making in “angry”: the “e” from “bet”? The “i” from “Jim”? Or some other short vowel sound? > > I’m wondering if you mean that the sound just take a short time to make, i.e., it’s an unstressed syllable. Is that what you’re saying? If that’s what you mean, a lot of the confusion is because you’re using the word “short” next to “vowel sound” to mean something very different from what “short vowel sound” usually means. I’m pretty sure he means the amount of time he spends actually saying the final vowel sound. Like “For angry, I say the final vowel sound (long e) for .5 seconds. For pedigree, I say the final vowel sound (long e) for 1.25 seconds. Therefore, they are not the same sound” (time exaggerated for clarity) At least I think that is what he is saying. I did say it was confusing. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/117 "2017-03-24T17:00:17Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I’m wondering if you mean that the sound just take a short time to make, i.e., it’s an unstressed syllable. Yes, by “short” and “long”, I’m speaking temporally. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/118 "2017-03-24T17:06:52Z")
How many people (like me) have been sitting here going?: Angry Angry Pedigree Pedigree Angry Pedigree Pedigree Angry 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Teuton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teuton/32/3864_2.png) [@Teuton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teuton)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/119 "2017-03-24T17:09:53Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Unless you’re talking about something that is routinely truly misspoken - “diphthong” and “diphtheria” being obvious examples - it’s best to assume that if someone says it’s pronounced a certain way, that’s actually how it’s pronounced where they are from. You can’t just leave that like that! Am I pronouncing Diphthong wrong? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836/120 "2017-03-24T17:59:42Z")
I dunno. “Diphthong” is commonly misspoken “dip-thong.” It’s “diff-thong,” no hard P. This is just a product of the fact it’s spelled weird, but the spelling does show you how to say it" **diph** thong. Same with diphtheria. It’s “diff-theer-ee-ah.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-something-interesting-about-english/782836.md?page=7)