zompist bboard

Compare English: a single root never has /aʊ/ twice in a ro Is there an actual rule behind that, or is that just a coincidence? Well, there's "kowtow." True, it's a loanword, but according to http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=kowtow it's been used in English since 1804. If the double-/aʊ/ th...

Obviously this distinction collapses is the vast majority of English words (basically, anywhere except right before /l/). But I still thought it was interesting. Does anybody else have this distinction? Wha? What you're calling /ə/ (which is usually called /ʊ/) occurs all over the place: good, foot...

Lull, gull, dull: [lʌɫ gʌɫ dʌɫ] Full, pull, bull: [fəɫ pəɫ bəɫ] This comes from a conversation with my sister, in which she kept referencing [tʃif dəɫ nəɪ̯f kɑɫɨdʒ]. I eventually said, "You say [dəɫ] instead of [dʌɫ]?" Now, my sister is not at all interested in phonetics. There is no reason she shou...

If you are still accepting sentences, how about:

"As for marrying her off, I say the sooner the better."