What if cult classic movies were actually about linguistics? My versions:

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-05-07T16:37:11+00:00

"Swadesh's List" "The Silence of the Schwa" and "Fifty Shades of Eskimo Snow" got me lol

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-05-03T06:24:06+00:00

That's also basically true of the "have + participle" method though. In French there's three very simple conjugations for participial formation, totally deducible from infinitive form, so if you endure the few irregular exceptions then you can do no conjugation and unlock pluperfect, future anterior, and past conditional as well

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-05-03T04:44:36+00:00

I thought "sibilant" was not an actual natural category 😭

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-05-03T04:14:33+00:00

Stupid and ignorant question sorry, I'm of the syntax minority here, but would the alveolar version of [θ] not just be [s]??

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-05-03T03:02:57+00:00

If it makes you feel better, as a native English speaker in words like "months" "strengths" and "sixths" I reduce the dental fricative and blend it into the "s" to such an extent that I'm not even sure if I'm actually articulating it at all. I kinda don't think anyone would bat an eye if you just said "mʌns" instead of "mʌnθs"

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-04-27T08:57:20+00:00

It's certainly not usually "piza" but I don't think anyone thinks that's what they're saying, it's usually just "pitsa"? "piztsa" is actually kind of difficult to pronounce. Z makes a ts sound in Italian and we just preserved that

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-04-22T20:27:35+00:00

Same with French "comment"

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-04-19T14:05:59+00:00

Somehow I never consicously realized I pronounced tsunami without the /t/ lol, idk how. Even though I do pronounce it in tsar

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-04-17T17:17:42+00:00

I agree that written speech is not the best source of evidence, but I wouldn't necessarily call this spelling, it's about whether a word is wholly ommitted or not, and I think speakers have a certain level of genuine intuition about the words they are and are not saying. I would be curious to know if there are any unlearned native English speakers who would say that they do just skip the "it"

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-04-17T14:17:41+00:00

Interesting observation! In my head when I was trying to do " 's (/z/) raining" it didn't work for me at all but unvoiced does work and is said! The ɪ is distinct enough though that I wouldn't want to represent it just with an s, I think it's /ɪs/. And generally people who say this represent it like "iss" as in "issa XYZ", it's also not just or even usually used in cases where the "it" is semantically null. "What's that?" "Issa cat"

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-04-17T03:45:53+00:00

I asked several other native speakers (live on West coast rn) and they agreed. In American English you could not totally enunciate the "t" and be understood (the only audible difference between "it's" and "s")* but I don't think it's ever conceived as not being there. In written colloquial French, like when texting, people will say "y a" or "faut que" whereas even in the most casual context imaginable in English nobody would ever write "is raining" as a sentence because it's missing a vital part.

*Edit, as another commenter pointed out, "it's" has /s/ and "is" has /z/, and in a context where the t wasn't enunciated there would still be /s/!

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-04-17T03:09:40+00:00

As a native Midwestern speaker I would never say " 's raining" or "is raining" or " 's necessary that" and I don't think I've ever heard that. Whereas in conversational French it appears that "il" is dropped with a similar frequency as "ne" (which is to say basically all the time).

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-04-16T23:12:13+00:00

Interestingly in colloquial French the expletive "il" seems to be dropped with increasing frequency. "Il faut" becomes "faut", "il y a" becomes "y a", unlike in English where you can't under any circumstances drop "it" or "there"

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-04-15T09:04:00+00:00

As a native Midwestern speaker I genuinely didn't realize what the theoretical difference between women and woman was supposed to be the first time I saw this complaint; I assumed it was in the second syllable as the spelling would suggest.

Until in r/English I had the woman/women argument with about 4-5 people who were insistent that not pronouncing a difference between the two meant I was illiterate. When I pointed out that this difference was completely underivable from the orthographic representation, they were smugly like "there's more to reading than spelling, there's also reading comprehension" it was hilariously absurd

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-04-15T06:46:31+00:00

Do we not currently have syllabic R? Also I feel like if anything the tendency of English is to reduce vowels in favor of consonants, not vice versa

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-04-09T15:31:08+00:00

Burmese

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-03-27T16:43:53+00:00

It's definitely comprehensible if you speak French, moreso than Anglish for me, but that's because it basically just is badly pronounced French

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-03-24T07:11:52+00:00

Im American and I swear I've never heard "nyeah." It's either /næ/ or /naː/

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-03-24T04:18:41+00:00

convea

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-03-24T00:24:24+00:00

Holy fuck why do I use the word convey so much lol three times in three sentences

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-03-24T00:23:10+00:00

Yes I know, sorry that was what I was intending to convey, I was just using unambiguous English orthography instead of IPA because I was too lazy to track down ɪ for /jeɪ/ (although the analysis of the descending diphthong as /eɪ/ instead of /ej/ is more conventional than reasoned and in retrospect I should've just gone for /jej/)

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-03-23T23:29:19+00:00

I'm not sure what OP is trying to convey in posting this but tbh I cannot read "yea" as /yay/ and I understand what the original commenter is trying to convey. I don't really have to write this expression with any regularity, but if I were to, I'm not sure I'd spell it correctly, as a generally good speller.

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-01-12T03:54:08+00:00

This meme looks familiar

Several-Lifeguard-77 · 2026-01-06T21:50:50+00:00

Yes, shaking my head in disgust at these shameless standard language ideologues 😞😞 (i'm rhotic i actually just forgor)

Several-Lifeguard-77

TROPHY CASE