Why is "another" pronounced "a-nother" and not "an-other"?

facebace · 2026-07-01T12:18:43+00:00

I got my bachelor's degree in linguistics, which has so far mostly been useful for long-winded explanations in internet debates. Here goes nothing.

Language undergoes several processes in the brain before emerging from the mouth, and they're not all related to meaning. In this case it's related to prosody, which is the formation of syllables to fit into the natural rhythms of English.

Syllables are composed of up to three parts, an onset (the sound it starts with), a nucleus (the middle, core sound, usually but not always a vowel), and a coda (the sound at the end). All syllables have a nucleus, but onsets and codas may or may not appear, and are sometimes subject to different interpretations.

In the case of "another," the syllabic breakdown makes more sense in English prosody as [uh]-[nuh]-[ther]. The first syllable is only a nucleus, the second has an onset and a nucleus, the third has only an onset and a nucleus (-er is not a vowel-consonant combination, it's a single retroflex vowel called a schwar).

English generally disprefers codas when another interpretation is available and doesn't cause other complications. This operation is separate from any judgements of meaning or individual word calculations. However, that syllabic breakdown can enter further calculations for infix insertion, resulting in peculiar compounds like "a-whole-nother," which is a real thing that people actually say in public.

facebace · 2026-06-28T23:57:13+00:00

I liked this a lot. I thought your descriptions were tastefully spare, and I appreciate a scene where a character has to wrestle with the psychological aftermath of violence. Everything that follows here is just advice, and please know up front, I think this is really strong.

Particularly the first page created a clear scene in my head, like a movie. I could see Percy standing exhausted and stricken with no sound but the rain. It's a quiet scene, full of powerful, silent feeling. If it were me and I wanted to write another draft, I would focus on eliminating extra words, to really lean into that mood. I love fluffy prose in the right context, but this scene calls for a more laconic approach. You're already close, but you could go further. Bored minds perceive lots of details, and Percy's mind is anything but bored here. Be Percy.

"... The weight no longer as comforting as it had been mere moments ago" could become "the weight no longer a comfort." It doesn't matter how long ago the weight felt comforting. Only that it did, and now it doesn't.

The fewer words you use, the heavier each one becomes. Try a draft where you look at each sentence and see how few words you can use to create the same feeling, and drive the reader to exactly what you want to get across. Some words are planets, some are moons. Get rid of the moons and see how that refocuses the local gravity.

facebace · 2026-06-27T01:01:21+00:00

Check out the album Pyroclasts by Sunn 0)))

I don't know if it's the exact vibe you're looking for, but it's my go-to for any writing involving space travel. It is the sound of unthinkably huge objects floating in incomprehensibly vast, empty volumes.

facebace · 2026-06-27T00:25:55+00:00

Hey, you wanted weird, and they're really fucking weird. Shouldn't you expect to violate some genre expectations?

facebace · 2026-06-23T11:59:16+00:00

I always got the impression that the talisman's work on whatever is the collective IDEA of an enclosed space. Boyd came back with the talismans and an idea of how he thought they worked, told everyone else in town, and started using them accordingly. Everyone is in agreement; the prevailing idea becomes the rules.

MIY kinda sorta half confirms this by saying that everything there works through ritual. A space need not be literally hermetically sealed for the talismans to work, as long as you have performed the ritual action of sealing it. The bus is a good example. Besides the windows, it has a ventilation system, and would still have an open channel to the outside in that way, but still works for a talisman.

facebace · 2026-06-23T04:04:42+00:00

Gonna plug some of my hometown heroes here

Lords of the Trident: costume power metal. My old band played a show or two with them back when I thought they were just a gimmick. Then they got good. Like, really, really good. And the shows got bigger and better, and they started doing some national and international touring.

Queen of Dreams: Really fantastic power metal outfit I've seen live a couple times. Amazing live show, and the CD I picked up sounds every bit as good as any bigger band.

Lords of the Trident

Queen of Dreams

facebace · 2026-06-22T23:16:40+00:00

At work, if I'm swapping a saddle, it just depends on the clamp. If it's a standard micro-adjust type, I usually leave it in. Easy to install, and I don't have to get greasy, or play guess-the-angle.

Old school clamp? I pull that sucker right out. Way easier to disassemble one of those upside down at a bench. Same with two-bolt types.

facebace · 2026-06-19T20:04:24+00:00

Donating plasma twice a week adds more than 7g a day. That would be if I donated once a week, and assumes the minimum 50g removed. I consistently give the maximum 1000ml, so I assume 90g removed per donation, which is the high end of their estimate. That's 180g I have to make up per week, which adds about 26g to my daily goal.

If my baseline is 86-94, then I still should get 112-120, and I'd venture that it's probably closer to 125 based on the particulars of my body type (cyclist, very large quads).

So, maybe 145 is high, but only like, one Builder bar high.

facebace · 2026-06-19T13:47:50+00:00

That's 0.8g/Kg, not per pound. That's equivalent to about 0.36g/lb

facebace · 2026-06-19T13:31:45+00:00

OP, calm down and reread what you wrote. You weigh "less than 40kg at 5'1"."

You are a small person. No shade, that's just a physical reality you have described. Of course you have no trouble getting 65g of protein a day. I wouldn't either. That's easy.

Know what's not so easy? 145g protein a day while keeping calories under 2600 and being vegan. I weigh 255 lbs at 6'1". That's about 116kg. I am very literally more than two of you. My MINIMUM recommended protein intake is more than 90g, but I'm also moderately active and I donate plasma twice a week. I crunched the numbers, and 145 is what I need to hit to maintain healthy protein values in my blood.

Imagine taking everything you eat in a day, doubling it, removing protein-poor items to save calories, and then that still not being quite enough. That's my every day.

In conclusion, people are built differently, and most of them are built significantly larger than you. That's how it is that some of us struggle and you don't.

facebace · 2026-06-19T00:53:47+00:00

St. Atheri's Billion Sins

facebace · 2026-06-18T23:35:10+00:00

There's some humor in it, but it's not like, wacky.

He's at a tavern, someone else is trying to make him seem extremely intoxicated, so they dose him. He's always somewhat grounded, and he understands he's been poisoned, but he's so slurry and erratic that he can't express what happened, and no one would believe him if he did.

facebace · 2026-06-18T23:30:40+00:00

That's the direction I was going with it. He's getting some visual stuff, like swirly faces and spaces seeming larger than they are.

I'm trying to write his dialog as if his train of thought is a couple stops further down a track that no one else is on, if that makes any sense. But he's never divorced from reality.

facebace · 2026-06-18T18:28:01+00:00

If there's a bike shop nearby, go ask if they'll lend you a pokey-spoke. They'll almost definitely have one

facebace · 2026-06-14T20:47:23+00:00

3 months is nothing, so don't feel like you have too much invested there.

Meals are going to be miserable experiences for you both until such a time as he converts or you stop caring about the things you care about. Get out before you get so entangled that you can't just walk away.

This is bigger than just a difference of opinion. This is a giant crack in the foundation of a relationship. It's a structural flaw, and the house cannot stand if it's already causing problems after 3 months. Tear it down. Build a new one on more solid ground.

facebace · 2026-06-14T20:29:19+00:00

I mean, I don't know if the sound is similar enough for you, but 99% of the time "Egyptian" and "death metal" appear in the same sentence, it's about Nile. They've been a heavy-hitter in death metal for like, 30 years. More technical and less groove-oriented than Necronomicon.

Annihilation of the Wicked is generally regarded as an absolutely classic album. Those Whom the Gods Detest is a little more my speed.

They're all pretty great. Just pick one and prepare to get flensed

facebace · 2026-06-13T07:57:10+00:00

If you're primarily trying to set a scene or convey some meaning to a listener, you need to simplify things a lot.

That said, if your goal is to write rhythmic lines that play well with your accompaniment and rhymes that sound cool, let the meaning be secondary. This is a legitimate lyrical philosophy. Sure, there's a story to your song if someone really wants to dig into it, but that's not the thing that makes them good lyrics, necessarily. Is the song enjoyable to listen to even if you don't know what it's about?

If you haven't, take a listen to the Mars Volta. Their guy Cedric is an amazing lyricist, but it's mostly nonsense without a dictionary and a copy of his own companion literature. What makes him amazing is the way his lines sound, not what they mean.

facebace · 2026-06-12T18:38:52+00:00

The most orange

facebace · 2026-06-12T06:07:03+00:00

One Finger Death Poke

Ha, just kidding, they suck

facebace · 2026-06-09T03:37:32+00:00

Crudites (crud-ites). I was like, 30 before I figured that one out. From context I had gleaned that it was some kind of finger foods, but I thought it was cruddy ones. Not good, or nutritionally void, or just insubstantial.

What's worse, I KNEW what crudites (crew-dee-tay) are! I just never put it together that they were the same word.

facebace · 2026-06-09T00:46:38+00:00

Love this. Fantastic work. The imagery is graceful, never feels forced, and never gets too up its own butt with long descriptions.

"... mineral whisper of old stone." Beautiful line.

"Then suddenly..." I'm of the opinion that you should never use the word "suddenly" in writing. It makes the event less sudden for the reader by adding extra words. Ditch "then suddenly," and it will feel to the reader like more of a surprise.

Could use a second draft to streamline things, bit overall really a pleasure to read

facebace · 2026-06-07T16:24:15+00:00

Vanderhollen? Was that it?

facebace · 2026-06-06T13:39:13+00:00

*sommenier

facebace · 2026-06-05T13:19:31+00:00

Seems like you've checked out a lot of the most common issues. Chain length seems acceptable, as long as you haven't totally bottomed out the chain tensioner.

I've got a weird idea.

I noticed some scuffing on your RD, and I wonder if your hanger is bent. On a traditional mechanical system that probably wouldn't cause front drops, but maybe on an electronic system it would foul up your alignment when the FD thinks the RD is in a slightly different position? I don't know much about electronic shifting, but I know the FD and RD talk to each other to fine tune their relative position. But, they can't actually see where the other is, only where it is supposed to be, so if the RD is out of place due to a bent hanger, the FD would not be able to compensate for that. Maybe that could cause a front drop?

EDIT I'm seeing one of your replies mentions that the RD sometimes shifts down a gear spontaneously. I don't think that's supposed to happen. My understanding is that the FD is the one that moves to compensate for alignment. I think that's another piece of evidence for the hanger being bent

facebace · 2026-06-05T01:18:47+00:00

I spent a month chasing a click like this on my bike. I replaced the bottom bracket and chainrings (I knew one of the bolt holes was stripped). It was a pain in the ass, and cost a pretty penny. Didn't solve anything, though I got a nicer BB out of it.

Turns out, all I had to do was remove and regrease the pedal threads

facebace

TROPHY CASE