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I love this show, and look forward to it every week. Martha and Grant present information that constantly informs and entertains me.
I would like to bring up an issue, however, and it's incumbent upon Martha and Grant, and ESPECIALLY JOHN CHANESKI—as esteemed linguists—to address it. The latest quiz was described as one in “in which the only vowel is the letter A.â€
Really, as language experts, you should know better than to say “the only vowel is the letter A.†By saying this, you only perpetuate the notion that English has only five or seven vowels: A, E, I, O, U (and for some, Y and W). These are vowel letters, and should be described as such on a radio show, to distinguish them from the true vowels of English, which are produced with the mouth—the tongue, the lips, the throat, and even the nose. English has at least 21 vowels, depending on whom you ask. Vowel letters are simply the limited means we have to represent the richness of spoken English on paper. Even in John Chaneski's quiz he used the letter A to represent different vowels.
Consider how many distinct vowels the letter A can represent:
mat
mate
father
And many linguists consider the retroflex nature of nasalization, r-coloring, and l-coloring as phenomena in English which create distinct vowels:
man
mar
mall
These are all different vowels, but John Chaneski (and sometimes Grant) still talk about English vowels as if they were constituted of nothing but letters. In general, there's a tendency on “A Way with Words†to view language as only a written thing. Very often Grant will mention the first appearance of a word only as a written form, completely ignoring that spoken usage usually predates written usage.
The only reason why such well-informed and knowledgeable language experts would do this is because they think their listeners are not capable of grasping the concept—this despite that both Grant and Martha often successfully describe much more complex language concepts.
Please, we can handle it.
Thanks for your thoughts, guizot. But do you really think listeners would be better served if we referred to "vowel letters" in a game? IMHO, the colloquial sense of "vowel" -- the way most people understand the word -- is all that's needed there.
And neither Grant nor I would suggest that words tend to be written before they're spoken. But unless we're talking about evidence that's available (usually in written form) then we're reduced to speculating.
Guizot, you're being overly reductive by excluding the valid definition of the word “vowelâ€: “a letter or character representing a vowel†(Collins, and similar definitions are in every dictionary I've checked).
Very often Grant will mention the first appearance of a word only as a written form, completely ignoring that spoken usage usually predates written usage.
No, not ignoring it. I say it all the time. What makes you think that other people don't know that, anyway? Or about the variety of vowel sounds? Is there a secret trove of information that only you, I, and Martha have access to? I think you'd be surprised how many listeners appreciate that we don't belabor the same details every time we mention vowels or every time we talk about dating a word, and so forth. They're educated, they're careful listeners, and they get it–which makes you right, Guizot. They can handle it, they just don't need it.
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