Clue me in, musick. You know I don't understand *half of what you say.

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.

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.

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'?

>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

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.

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.

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.

"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!

<<What a very interesting community you live in>> [lol!!]

That it were so!

a city ordinance against anything more.

And in Times Square, it's outlawed completely.

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.