Did you learn the vowels as “a,” “e,” “i,” “o,” “u,” and sometimes “y” and “w”? A caller who was taught that in second grade was left wondering: When and where does “w” function as a vowel? This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “The Vowel “W””
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, Grant. This is Matt in San Diego calling.
Hey, Matt. Welcome to the show.
Hi, Matt.
Hey, Martha.
Hi. What’s up?
Well, I have questions relating to the letter and the vowel, W.
And my question goes way back to second grade, where I can remember my second grade teacher explaining that the vowels are A-E-I-O-U and sometimes Y and W.
And then she went through, and of course, she gave us examples for all those things, except for W. And then she just sort of said, well, and W doesn’t happen very often.
And I remember as a seven-year-old kid going, well, that doesn’t work for me. Give me an example.
And she never did. And then if you fast forward in my life, about 13 or 14 years, I’m in college and I’m taking a geology class. And the professor is talking about glaciers and landforms, and he says, well, here’s this particular feature, and it’s called a coom, C-W-M.
And that was my first example of a word that uses W as a vowel.
Oh, wow.
So you stood up in class and just screamed Eureka?
Pretty much.
Yeah.
And have you run into any others?
You know, I mentioned this to a friend, and I can’t remember the word now, but there was another word that they mentioned that was a musical instrument, and it started with KW, and I can’t recall.
But I did happen to look up in my geologic dictionary, because I ended up proceeding in geology, because that was such an incredible experience.
I just decided I had to study geology.
Because of coombe?
No.
Because of running across the word coombe?
I say that tongue-in-cheek.
Okay. All right.
But anyways, I did look it up in my geologic dictionary, and it happens to be a Welsh word.
And this musical instrument that starts with KW also was a Welsh word.
So I do know that much.
But it just strikes me as kind of a funny letter in that it’s, you know, W.
Was it, you know, is it really two U’s?
You know, what’s going on with that?
What is up with W?
Yeah.
The letter.
Exactly.
Right.
Well, yeah, and the other word that you’re thinking of is crouth.
And I haven’t seen it.
Grant, have you seen it spelled with a K?
I’ve seen it spelled with a C, C-R-W-T-H.
No, I’ve never.
Yeah, it’s some kind of Celtic instrument, as you said.
Yeah, so I can see why you were sort of disappointed in your teacher that she would say this.
And actually, I never had a teacher like that growing up that said W was sometimes a vowel.
Did they say that to you, Grant?
No, I learned that as an adult.
Where did you go to school, Matt?
In Los Angeles, LA Unified School District.
And from what I understand from my friends, I don’t think they teach W as a vowel to kids currently.
Yeah, I think that’s such a tiny corollary.
I can’t imagine teaching that to second graders.
I could see why I would be left out because it’s a little more complicated than the other vowels.
Except for these foreign words.
And let’s face it, these Welsh words aren’t fully adopted.
In English, we have alternate spellings of kum, for example, that are more common.
But W only acts as a vowel if it’s with other vowels in regular English words.
Right.
This is a thing that your second grade teacher probably didn’t bother to explain, probably didn’t want to go into, the fact that W forms a diphthong with other vowels.
So that diphthong meaning when you have two vowels together and it forms an entirely different sound.
Right.
Like, for example, you have the letters B-O, and then you add a W to it, and it makes that O sound completely different, right?
Right.
Or C-O, and you add the W, and it makes that O sound different.
You go from co to cow.
Right.
And the W is sort of a vowel-like sound there.
Right.
So, yes, as Grant said, those oddball Welsh words are just kind of borrowing.
So that’s not really what she was talking about, but I wonder if your teacher even knew what she was talking about.
Right, if it was just something she was parodying out of a book.
Could well be.
Yeah.
Well, Matt, I hope we’ve helped with W.
Absolutely.
Thanks, guys.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
If you have a question about something your second-grade teacher told you and never explained fully about language, give us a call.
That’s 1-877-W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.
