Monosyllables (was Re: Alphabets (was Re: Bill Gates))
Michael Butler (mmb@best.com)
Mon, 6 Oct 1997 17:21:41 -0700 (PDT)
On Mon, 6 Oct 1997, Wesley Schwein wrote:
> one consonant and one vowel or just one vowel. Languages like English or
> German, where syllables can be CCCVCC (streets), are a little harder to
> transcribe without a godawful number of characters.
It's worse than that: CCCVCCCVC is a single syllable in such English words
as "scratched" and "stretched". (I always wondered when that bit of trivia
would serve a purpose in some conversation apart from its trivia value...)
Nine letters, seven phonemes, one syllable.
MMB