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How many syllables does the word tail have? I say it has two.
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One and a half. Okay, one, but it's elongated. Definitely not two, as in tay-ul.
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I'm shocked J! I expected you to find three, or at least two and a half: tah-ee-uhl  Just a sole sound here.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Er, shouldn't that be "According to all y'all"?
TEd
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Carpal Tunnel
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No, that would have been all of you-all. I definitely say tay-ul.
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Carpal Tunnel
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I suppose two, but I'm with EC... or not.
formerly known as etaoin...
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Pooh-Bah
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One - apparently tails are shorter in Canada. (No freeze them off jokes please)
Swearing seems more effective in US'n since they can get 2 or 3 syllables out of a 4 letter word!
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This reminds me of what vocalists must do to make sure their throats don't tighten up whilst also attempting to pronunciate a word clearly enough to be recognized... by singing "only the vowels!" which might make 'tail' sound like "tae(long a)-yehl(short e)". Even if a composer didn't notate a distinction, a vocal coach or group director may adjust for clarity's sake.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dr. Bill remembers the "first grade, singing 'America the Beautful' with one line that ended '...and every gain Divine..' and wondering if grapes grew on a gaindyvine." Imbeddedin Jackie's original question are the sourcesof many mondegreens... jusdon't blame the lyricist for the "n"'s beingatt the enduva word. 
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Here's a napple for your effort. :-)
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"She was just a stableman's daughter, and all the horsemen knew her."
I'll give *you three guesses where that came from... and the last two don't count.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Clue me in, musick. You know I don't understand *half of what you say.
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There is something wonderous about Suthrin accents... a friend of mine from the Deep South manages to make several sylables out of my name - Ann.
She was always surprised that I knew at once who was calling me.
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Which half?  If I told you "it was Dr Bill" would you believe me or would you think it was someone else who said *those words.
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I think it's got one long syllable, ie with a long vowel.
With absolutely no reference to texts / teachings beyond what I can remember at this point (and no quality guarantees on that!!!)
- there are 'pure vowels' and 'diphthongs', which are basically combinations where the vowel sound moves from one to another. 'tail' has a diphthong as the sound moves from 'a' to 'y' (yeah, I know it's a half-vowel technically, BUT! And I've just been leading the Latin thread and remember they thought 'i' and 'y' were the same.)
- there are also short and long vowels.
- pure vowels are generally short. cat, vet, pin, hot, but, huh. But (I think) there are occasionally long ones too - too as opposed to took, hoop as opposed to hood.
Off topic, but Latin poetic meter is all about arrangements of long vs short vowels/syllables, whereas English meter is focused on stress/emphasis.
- and of course as the examples above illustrate, English spelling is such a mishmash that many 'long' syllables are written with one vowel in them and many 'short' ones with two. Pity the foreign language student - especially those whose native tongue orthography handles vowel length better! There is a famous pronunciation book for teachers of English as a second language 'Do you say ship or sheep?'
...Jackie, is there any difference for you between the number of syllables in 'tail' and the number of syllables in 'tale'?
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>pure vowels are generally short. cat, vet, pin,
Around here, Bridget, you are likely to hear:
caey-ut
vae-it
pee-in.
I heard a guy once tell his friend behind the wheel, "OK, put ee-it ee-in payark."
TEd
TEd
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is there any difference for you between the number of syllables in 'tail' and the number of syllables in 'tale'? No--speaking fast or speaking slow, they're both tay-ul. * *For any of you who may not realize it, there is a very large difference between the way northern US'n's speak and the way southern ones do. Kentucky leans strongly towards the southern in this respect. She was always surprised that I knew at once who was calling me.
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An aquaintance of mine has said that since her step-daughter turned 12, there are no more one-syllable words in her vocabulary. No becomes NO-wah Yes, yeh-sa Go, go-wah And all are usually said with a rolling of the eyes and a "parents are so-ah stupid" sigh.
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Pooh-Bah
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Hereabouts, "tail" has just one syllable of middling length. In fact, there is a city ordinance against anything more. "Y'all," however, though seldom used, has two.
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"tail" has just one syllable of middling length. In fact, there is a city ordinance against anything more.
Is that a fact? And do they tail people to make sure they don't say "tay-ul"? And throw your - um, tail - in jail if you do? What if someone tailing you says "tay-ul"? Can you turn tail and tail them? Or throw their tail in jail?
What a very interesting community you must live in!
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Pooh-Bah
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<<What a very interesting community you live in>> [lol!!]
That it were so!
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a city ordinance against anything more.
And in Times Square, it's outlawed completely.
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Pooh-Bah
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And in Times Square, it's outlawed completely.And enforced preemptively. Spotting South-of-Mason-Dixoners, cops intone the canned threat (city ordinance 204876209 part aa), "Thereza beddat Riker's for youze guyze -- watchit!" "youze guyze," that is, is the permissible translation. (I'll be happy to take you on the train, Jackie, if you promise to comply) Edit: M. Fal D'Age, to borrow from TEd's below post, I think your meaning went completely under my head  . Fortunately, somes are quicker.
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Charlotte has a no-tail ordinance, but they call it a prostitution free zone. Regardless of the ordinance, people who live in Charlotte tell me they have yet to find that prostitution is free. After all, if it were, it wouldn't be prostitution.
I also saw on the news the other day that Nevada, which has 28 licensed brothels, is thinking of imposing a tax on the bordellos. I was kind of surprised that they had not imposed such taxes before.
Give a whole new meaning to Virginia's head tax, doncha know? And gives a whole new meaning to the type of land ownership known as fee tail.
TEd
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Did you-all know that the word door also has two syllables? And I found out the other day on the phone that the word film has two.
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Pooh-Bah
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For any of you who may not realize it, there is a very large difference between the way northern US'n's speak and the way southern ones do. Kentucky leans strongly towards the southern in this respect.
Cincinnati, being just north of Kentucky across the Ohio River, has a fair number of speakers with more southern dialects in addition to the greater population of citizens who speak "Yankee." Thus Cincinnati is a city of two "tales."
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Pooh-Bah
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Thus Cincinnati is a city of two "tales." Clever, clever, clever!
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a city of two "tales." Daggone, boy, when you wake up you do wake up, don't you? I think I'll give you a new middle name: "Zinger".
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Carpal Tunnel
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It was the best of puns, it was the worst of puns!
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what the dickens is going on here, anyway?
formerly known as etaoin...
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Pooh-Bah
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It is a far far better pun than I have come up with in awhile, but nothing to lose your head over.
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Carpal Tunnel
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would you bo's quit that?
The pun was actually nothing to spit at; that would have been great expectorations.
TEd
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Pooh-Bah
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Okay Ted, you won't hear another pip out of me.
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>Okay Ted, you won't hear another pip out of me.
It was in the cards.
TEd
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journeyman
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In Columbus, mid-way in the State of Ohio, we have some of the Kentucky/West Virginia influence and some of the Yankee, too. I've been influenced myself, saying things like "bah" for "bye" and "hey" for "hi".
When I moved here in 1978, I had never seen so many pick-up trucks on the roads. Just didn't drive those in Youngstown unless you were in town from the farm.
In high school I had a chemistry teacher (am I allowed to tell her real name? It was pretty funny!) who was from the Deep South (forget which state). Instead of making two syllables out of some words, she simply left the dipthong out completely! Thus she said "boil" more like "bowl" and "oil" like "old" without a "d" on the end. Weird!
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? -Ursula K. Le Guin, author (1929- )
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Pooh-Bah
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You know what's really sad is, I was expecting a bad pun at the end of that paragraph, and when it didn't appear I was disappointed. I should see a doctor or something.
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I hear ya, Alex. Vanguard's obviously not been infected by the TEd bug yet.
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Vanguard:
Many years ago I had a tavern in WV for a VERY long year. I would rather live under a bridge than go through that again.
Anyway, one night a guy came into the tavern, ordered a beer, and asked, "Tayud, y'all got bowlegs?"
I looked down and said, "No, they're about as straight as anyone else's." Took about a minute for me to figure out he meant those boiled eggs that are preserved in a beet-juice based pickle.
The fatal blow to my tavern career came when I had to testify in a murder trial about statements that I had heard in the tavern. After word got around that I had violated the sanctity of bartender confidentiality people just stayed away in droves.
Welcome aboard! And disregard those guys over there who think they're behind the curtain.
TEd
TEd
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Pooh-Bah
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<<And disregard those guys over there who think they're behind the curtain.>>
Disregard them in toto [/TEd]
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in toto
That's West Virginia, not Kansas. [whistling]
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