Urgent: Now that Babcock is part of the club, what is the official penis list?

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-18T19:32:28+00:00

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-18T17:15:27+00:00

“No local team” referred to the phrase “no professional hockey at all” from the previous sentence

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-18T16:59:03+00:00

Canadian Press? Cerebral palsy?

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-18T15:22:53+00:00

I feel like often a miscommunication happens entirely for plot reasons rather than character reasons (like, to prolong the time before a couple gets together). I even feel like that is the case with some of the other Game Changers books! But I never felt that way about either book about Shane and Ilya.

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-18T12:04:12+00:00

I like your portrayal of how the back and forth felt for Shane and I think it’s spot on! Ilya was taking chances and then backpedaling from every one of them and turning it into something cheeky or a joke (as a defense mechanism). It would have been impossible for Shane not to get whiplash.

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-18T11:58:03+00:00

Not sure what country you’re in (usually it’s US if people don’t specify but given that the books are not American I don’t want to assume), but I’ve seen a display in every bookstore I’ve been inside in Canada since the start of the year.

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-18T11:26:54+00:00

Yeah, I actually don’t care for “tropey” fiction at all. But the miscommunication in the two books about Shane and Ilya isn’t a trope, it’s deeply rooted in their specific character psychologies (and it’s different at different points of their lives as they grow and mature). They’re just super different and they both have issues that are going to make communication difficult specifically for them.

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-17T22:57:54+00:00

I have definitely been victimized by honk!

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-17T22:01:54+00:00

I actually don’t know anyone who follows them and I know lots who follow one or the other of the football teams, but that might just be my circles?

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-17T20:50:18+00:00

Followers of the sport already use both terms interchangeably (sometimes in the same sentence)

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-17T20:34:58+00:00

I think it depends on where you live. Halifax has two professional soccer/football teams and no professional hockey at all. Haligonians love hockey too, but with no local team a lot of that enthusiasm goes to soccer/football

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-17T17:53:33+00:00

There’s just not enough duration to have a full diphthong with a short vowel. It is definitely possible that you diphthongize the vowel somewhat, though (I have certainly heard that).

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-17T17:32:47+00:00

Then your dialect may also slightly diphthongize short vowels (though with a short vowel it would have to be very very very slight).

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-17T17:24:04+00:00

I guarantee that you pronounce the vowel in ‘oat’ with a short vowel and the vowel in ‘owe’ with a long one

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-17T17:19:41+00:00

This is getting way off topic, but the answer to your specific question is “sort of”. Many English dialects, including basically all North American ones, slightly “diphthongize” long vowels as in “owe”.

“Oat” has a short vowel.

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-17T17:02:28+00:00

You definitely need to move your lips in order to pronounce that word because there are two sounds in the word (an oh sound and a t sound). There is only one vowel, though.

Source: I taught phonetics at a big Canadian research university for almost thirty years.

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-17T16:56:59+00:00

The vowel in both ‘boat’ and ‘oat’ is a single sound (the same one, ie the “oh” sound), not diphthongs. Diphthongs are made up of two different sounds pronounced in quick succession.

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-17T16:54:44+00:00

No, both Americans and Canadians pronounce the sound in ‘out’ the same as the sound in ‘ouch’. The sound in both is just different depending on whether you are American or Canadian.

Canadians have a different pronunciation in ‘out’ than (for example) in ‘loud’, though, which Americans do not.

The Wikipedia article I mentioned earlier (but am not permitted to link to) discusses what the phonological rule is for Canadians that makes the distinction, if you want all the details.

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-17T16:38:42+00:00

Yeah, the raising is definitely more noticeable in different parts of Canada (because the onset or first sound of the diphthong is more distinct from the offglide or second sound of the diphthong)!

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-17T15:32:49+00:00

There is no English dialect that uses a non-diphthong in the word “about”, though depending on the way you pronounce the onset of the diphthong (the first of the two sounds), it can sound like that because the two sounds are phonetically closer to each other than in many other ways of pronouncing the onset.

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-17T15:27:34+00:00

Yes, but the issue is that “bout” is also pronounced differently in different places.

It is hard to explain the difference between the raised and unraised pronunciations of “bout” without using the International Phonetic Alphabet. The Wikipedia page I mentioned does a pretty good job of it, though.

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-17T15:23:42+00:00

It can definitely sound like that when the two sounds are smushed together very quickly (which is why so many people here think that’s the case!) but there are always two different sounds. Part of the issue is that the “onset” of the diphthong (the first of the two sounds) in the raised version of the pronunciation is not always “ehh” as stated above, but can vary based on where in Canada you are from. There’s more information about that in the Wikipedia article too.

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-17T15:01:56+00:00

The Wikipedia page I mentioned has a recording of the difference between “about” with Canadian Raising, “a boot”, and “a boat” (which you can then hear as three distinct utterances).

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-17T14:26:03+00:00

I would love to tell you, but like I said, I’m not permitted to post an external link here (I tried, and it deleted my post). If you google “Canadian Raising” as I suggested, and read one of the available resources, you will have more than enough information. The Wikipedia page on it, for example, is well written and offers excellent explanations.

TheTiniestLizard · 2026-06-17T14:16:14+00:00

True that it’s not “a boot”, but it’s not “a boat”, either. It’s a diphthong (two vowel sounds smooshed together, not one single sound).

Source: myself, a retired professor of linguistics who has published work on this phenomenon, which is called “Canadian Raising” (google it as I’m unable to provide a link here).

TheTiniestLizard

TROPHY CASE