# 'u' with 'oo' sound **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 19, 2019, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878 "2019-08-19T09:42:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2019, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878/21 "2019-08-19T16:37:05Z")
I certainly would not say that. /j/ is a consonant. /ju/ is a consonant followed by a vowel. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2019, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878/22 "2019-08-19T16:42:21Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > I certainly would not say that. /j/ is a consonant. /ju/ is a consonant followed by a vowel. I may be technically incorrect calling it a diphthong (I’m not sure), but it is referred to such by [various sources](https://teflpedia.com/IPA_phonetic_sequence_/ju%CB%90/): > [@](#): > > In English, both in Received Pronunciation and in General American, the IPA phonetic sequence /juː/ corresponds to the diphthong in words like “cute”, “few”, “university”, or “music”. > > This sequence is not considered a phoneme because it can be studied as /j/+/uː/. However, since it is very common, this diphthong has the informal name “long U” or the less informal description of long sound of the letter U. At any rate, the “u” corresponds to /j/ + /u:/ and not just the /u:/ part (at least as I’ve always interpreted it), so I’d think when you’d ask most English speakers what the sound of the second vowel in “amuse” is, they’d respond /ju:/ and not /u:/. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2019, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878/23 "2019-08-19T16:47:15Z")
> [@bibliophage](#): > > I’m not sure I understand the question. Pronouncing English _u_ as ‘oo’ (IPA /uː/) is not at all rare. A _u_ followed by a _e_ later in the same syllable is very often (possibly in most cases) pronounced ‘oo.’ Hence _blue_, _chute_, _true_, _include_, etc. Even without the _e_, the ‘oo’ pronunciation is very common, with hundreds, maybe thousands, of examples. Some of them have sort of an implied _e_ later in the same syllable (E.g., _dilution_ from _dilute_, but many do not) > > … > quadruped > … > vicuna > … > > I admit I couldn’t find any examples starting with w, x, or y. My elementary school teachers would correct you on vicuna and quadruped. Quadruped has a schwa sound, and vicuna has a long U sound. According to them, a U has the following sounds- long U (mule), short U (hundred), oo U, (fluke), and schwa (campus). Quadruped with schwa- [QUADRUPED | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/quadruped) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2019, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878/24 "2019-08-19T16:53:41Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I may be technically incorrect calling it a diphthong (I’m not sure) It seems there is some argument even with phoneticians about this, as I find [here](https://books.google.com/books?id=m9pF9oWXnCcC&lpg=PA96&ots=fhgYngRsg7&dq=diphthong&pg=PA96#v=snippet&q=is%20ju%20a%20diphthong&f=false) (click on page 96 if it doesn’t come up as a direct link.) So I’m not unique in calling it or treating it as a diphthong. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2019, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878/25 "2019-08-19T17:28:42Z")
Is Uber considered an English word yet? ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2019, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878/26 "2019-08-19T17:30:27Z")
I’m trying to think of one that hasn’t been posted already. It’s brutal I tell you. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2019, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878/27 "2019-08-19T17:47:09Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > I certainly would not say that. /j/ is a consonant. /ju/ is a consonant followed by a vowel. As Pulykamell said, it is usually treated as one of Standard American English’s vowel diphthongs. And when it comes to comparing phonemic inventories, pre-GVS evolved into post-GVS [ju], so it functions as a diphthong. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2019, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878/28 "2019-08-19T18:56:50Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Not quite the same, but it took me _years_ of seeing [this comic](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d0/b8/94/d0b894cf5c6141071095541e08c60c67.jpg) pop up in random places (both my brother and I liked the Far Side, so there were some books and calenders around the house) before I understood it. Living in Wisconsin, you probably never encountered this Mexican company: [https://rickgaylestudio.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/14-foot\_trucks-copy-31.jpg](https://rickgaylestudio.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/14-foot_trucks-copy-31.jpg) 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2019, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878/29 "2019-08-19T19:46:34Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Watusi was also a dance craze. As soon as I saw the word, I started hearing “Waaa Waa a Watusi” in my head. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2019, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878/30 "2019-08-19T22:01:16Z")
Around here, I hear “Zumba” pronounced as in “push” or “bush” - the same “oo” as in “book” Other possible u’s are: - the u in “blue”, “true”, same as “bloom” (or zoom) - the u in “nuclear”, “human” , same as “you” - the u in “luck”, “mud”, not an “oo” sound Not sure which if these is actually the “right” u ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2019, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878/31 "2019-08-20T03:18:46Z")
If only there were some kind of, y’know, rule. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2019, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878/32 "2019-08-20T04:53:00Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > I certainly would not say that. /j/ is a consonant. /ju/ is a consonant followed by a vowel. No, j-the-letter is normally called a “consonant”, but /j/ represents a vowel sound. Letters are neither consonants nor vowels, it’s the sounds that can be consonants or vowels, and we really, really need to stop confusing both. That a certain IPA symbol happens to match a certain letter does not mean the symbol equals the sound or sounds represented by that letter in any specific languages: they sometimes do match (the basic vowels /aeiou/ match the letters representing them in several languages) but not necessarily so (the consonant /x/ is represented in modern Spanish by “j” or “g” depending on what the following vowel is, by “x” in a handful of words whose spelling tries to be Olde, and the letter “x” can represent several other sounds in the same language). ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2019, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878/33 "2019-08-20T05:58:40Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > “Long” and “short” don’t really translate across accents. In general, you can’t adequately describe the vowels of English by just using the words “long” and “short” with the letter names of A, E, I, O and U. That implies that English has ten vowels, but in fact there at least 21 vowels in English (depending on how you classify them, more). Letters don’t intrinsically make sounds–they just represent sounds we make with our mouths. So when you say “long A,” the only reason others know what you mean is because so many of us were taught by teachers using this expression, but the letter A is used to represent \*\*\*two \*\*\*long vowels (as in _hate_ and _father_), so for someone who _ **wasn’t** _ bought up hearing the expression “long A,” they aren’t necessarily going to know which one you mean. It particularly becomes a problem when poorly trained ESL teachers use these expressions with students (assuming they will just naturally know what they mean), because these expressions really are only meaningful for people brought up in typical American school systems. In the same way, to say things like “the oo sound,” as in the OP, can be confusing, because–as **Ascenray** notes–in English those two letters can represent various sounds: _wool_, _good_, _coop_, _floor_, _blood_. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2019, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878/34 "2019-08-20T07:12:47Z")
There are even languages where a “long vowel” and a “short vowel” are exactly the same except for length of actual pronunciation, they are the same sound. I understand that for ESL learners who have that kind of distinction the English expressions are even more confusing than for those of us who simply hadn’t encountered them before: they tend to assume it means the same as in their original language, whereas we get all confused the first time we hear the expression and ask the teacher who then gets all confused… but eventually we all end up figuring it out. So long as your next native teacher’s dialect isn’t too different from the first one, you’ll be OK. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2019, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878/35 "2019-08-20T07:21:50Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > 1. “Portuguese” 🙂 Now I’m wondering if there is any English dialect which turns that single vowel into a diphthong… I think the question should be whether there is any English dialect that doesn’t. I’ve never heard one. It’s always “Portyugees” (insert IPA equivalent here). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2019, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878/36 "2019-08-20T08:28:22Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > I think the question should be whether there is any English dialect that doesn’t. I’ve never heard one. It’s always “Portyugees” (insert IPA equivalent here). Yes, to the extent that the ‘t’ tends to sound more like ‘ch’. I think the reason we pronounce ‘sugar’ and ‘sure’ with ‘sh’ sounds is the same - the pronunciation went from ‘soogar’ to ‘syoogar’ to ‘shoogar’. Someone here will know the name of this process (the one with the ‘s’, not the great vowel shift). ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2019, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878/37 "2019-08-20T08:31:26Z")
Yeah, I’ve heard it most often in a way I’d transcribe as “porchugíis” (I’m feeling too lazy to IPA). One of my coworkers did say “porchiu gíis”, space and all, but he always pronounced any words over two syllables as if he was afraid to break them. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2019, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878/38 "2019-08-20T10:10:23Z")
> [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](#): > > Yes, to the extent that the ‘t’ tends to sound more like ‘ch’. I think the reason we pronounce ‘sugar’ and ‘sure’ with ‘sh’ sounds is the same - the pronunciation went from ‘soogar’ to ‘syoogar’ to ‘shoogar’. Someone here will know the name of this process (the one with the ‘s’, not the great vowel shift). Palatalization ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2019, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878/39 "2019-08-20T12:11:27Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Palatalization Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2019, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878/40 "2019-08-20T22:11:16Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Huh nobody’s mentioned the first word that came to my mind. > > Tuba. I would say “tyouba”, so for me it is not an “oo” sound. Same with nuclear and stupid. > [@Joey\_P](#): > > Not quite the same, but it took me _years_ of seeing [this comic](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d0/b8/94/d0b894cf5c6141071095541e08c60c67.jpg) pop up in random places (both my brother and I liked the Far Side, so there were some books and calenders around the house) before I understood it. I don’t understand what you didn’t understand about it. Did you not recognise it as a misspelling of “food”? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-with-oo-sound/838878.md?page=3)