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Joined: Jul 2003
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Quote:
Why is W the only multi syllable letter in the English alphabet?
Why? Why? Why?
Perhaps because it is quite literally "double v"?
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Joined: Jul 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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And the question is: Do you spell your name with a V, Herr Wagner? Pronounced Vagner in German, of course. The joke doesn't translate well to print, but what are you gonna do?
TEd
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2002
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Quote:
1. the 23rd letter of the English alphabet, a semivowel.
Semivowel?? A E I O U and sometimes Y and half of W??
Would quadrupleU be a full vowel??
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Joined: Jul 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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a sound with vowel and consonant features: a sound that is like a vowel in involving no major obstruction of the airflow but that functions as a consonant in preceding vowels that form the nucleus of syllables. Examples in English are initial "w" and "y."
TEd
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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w is more commonly a vowel in Welch; e.g., see cwm and crwth.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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w is more commonly a vowel in Welch; e.g., see cwm and crwth.
And ys were dotted in Middle Welsh.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Why? Why? Why? 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Quote:
And ys were dotted in Middle Welsh.
As it is in my ex-husband's surname. Originally ending in ij, sometime in the 19thC the spelling was changed to a dotted y. His family's (north) German, but I guess the origin is Dutch.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Originally ending in ij, sometime in the 19thC the spelling was changed to a dotted y.There is a difference between the Middle Welsh dotted y (with a single dot) and the Dutch ij ligature (and, for that matter the y with diaeresis. They're all in Unicode as separate glyphs.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Oh, oops. A single dot. Of course. Thanks for the clear-up, Nunc.
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