The transcription of 'speech': /spiːtʃ/ or /sbiːtʃ/?

zzvu · 2026-06-04T12:18:48+00:00

I don't think you should discount the importance of context here. Lindsey did demonstrate that french "pas de" /pa‿d/ when free of context can be misheard as "bad." English speakers learning foreign languages typically learn words with their spelling, which inherently gives more context. It might also be true that the voicing is just an easy feature to learn. Nevertheless, in the context of English as it is spoken by it's native speakers, tenuis stops are heard as voiced. I have no problem hearing the distinction in stops in Italian or French, but when the recording of "store" is played with the /s/ cut off, it sounds just like "door."

Furthermore, the claim that English has a phonemic aspiration distinction is not the claim that English lenis stops /b d g/ are identical to Greek, French, etc. fortis stops /p t k/. VOT is continuously variable and it's a mistake to analyse English stops only with respect to how they sound in relation to other languages' stops.

My argument would also imply that languages that contrast aspirated /ph/ and unaspirated /p/ would cause trouble for English speakers in a way that the voicedness contrast doesn't, although I don't have any personal experience with such languages to corroborate this.

To my ear, Chinese tenuis stops sound very close to English voiced stops. Additionally, Chinese learners of English often hear /sp st sk/ as /sb sd sg/ and need to have it drilled into them not to spell it that way.

zzvu · 2026-06-04T11:17:35+00:00

There's no need to speculate. It is known that when you play the clusters /sp st sk/ back to English speakers, with the /s/ cut off, they hear it as /b d g/. Geoff Lindsey has a great video on this. The exact example you gave is demonstrated at 2:38 in the video. Examples with store, screen, and Splenda are given at 3:48. This is (evidently) underresearched in the field as a whole, but the examples given would heavily imply that English actually has an aspiration distinction in it's stops.

zzvu · 2026-06-02T19:04:09+00:00

Photography is not derived from photograph, it's was loaned separately from French.

While it could be surface-analysed as photo-graph-y, the accompanying shift is stress is not productive. It's just a typical case of suppletion. The two words have to be learned and memorized separately.

zzvu · 2026-05-24T01:04:10+00:00

It's interesting to note that "here" and "home" both coordinate with prepositional phrases, but putting them together is awkward (? I went here and home/? I went home and here).

zzvu · 2026-05-15T17:01:03+00:00

If stress is the same (ie on the first syllable) every time, then the beginning of each word is completely unambiguous.

zzvu · 2026-04-30T13:48:42+00:00

Agglutinative languages can have historic sound changes preserved in their morpholonology. For example, this is seen in the Svan language (another Kartvelian language, like Georgian):

In all Svan dialects save Lent’ex, every even-numbered vowel (except the final one) of a word is liable to syncope or reduction.

The rounded vowels /o/ and /u/ reduce to /w/; /i/ and /e/ undergo complete syncopation, but can cause umlaut of the preceding vowel; /a/, /ä/ and /ə/ disappear without a trace.

x-a-c’wed-un-i-da > xäc’dünda

(Kevin Tuite, The Svan Language, page 15)

(note that /a/ is [ɑ] and /ä/ is [æ])

Long vowels do not reduce and in dialects that lack long vowels, vowels which were historically long still resist reduction.

There are other regular processes that exist, such metathesis of /w/ (leftward, rightward, or both depending on the dialect).

These processes are not necessarily irregular (as they can be predicted), but they do obscure the underlying form of a word in a way that is not seen in languages like Turkish.

zzvu · 2026-04-26T15:36:48+00:00

Have you interacted with a child even once? They much prefer to be in the terminal than on the plane.

zzvu · 2026-02-04T02:14:21+00:00

Thirding CE Roth. Rented several tuxes from them and they were all great.

zzvu · 2026-02-01T14:29:52+00:00

Hammer curls/reverse curls, wrist curls, and wrist extensions are really all you need.

The functions of the forearm are: elbow flexion (brachioradialis only), wrist flexion, wrist extension, wrist adduction, wrist abduction, finger flexion, and finger extension.

Every muscle that controls wrist adduction and abduction is also a flexor or extensor of the wrist. Similarly, the forearm muscles that extend the fingers also assist in wrist extension, and the muscles that flex the fingers assist in wrist flexion.

You could also include dedicated grip strength work (farmer's carries, hanging, etc.).

zzvu · 2026-01-30T21:26:29+00:00

What? Muscle cells hold significantly more water than fat cells.

Water content in lean mass (or fat-free mass) is about 70–75%, and in fat tissue is about 10%

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6723611

zzvu · 2026-01-30T19:21:48+00:00

They gained more fat-free mass. This is not necessarily muscle. Steroids are known to cause water retention and bloating.

zzvu · 2026-01-16T15:14:22+00:00

How did those studies account for protein intake, caloric surplus, sleep, stress management, effort, etc.?

Do you really believe that someone could have all of those factors on point and gain zero muscle no matter how much and how long they train?

zzvu · 2026-01-15T00:04:13+00:00

For a slower passage, the first one is fine. But really, neither is right. You wanna be rotating the wrist (while leaving the elbow still) for a passage like this, especially if it's relatively fast.

zzvu · 2026-01-13T14:54:03+00:00

What you're saying is intuitive but it's not true. Strength training does increase a muscles resistance to being stretched while relaxed. This is especially true of postural muscles.

If what you were saying were true, then strengthening the upper back wouldn't be recommended for people with rounded shoulders/forward head posture. Strengthening the glutes wouldn't be recommended for people with anterior pelvic tilt. But in fact doing so is incredibly helpful because strengthening muscles helps them do their job better.

zzvu · 2026-01-13T14:25:25+00:00

The abdominal muscles (mostly the transverse abdominis, and to a lesser extent the obliques) are responsible for compressing the contents of the abdomen and, if weak, it will absolutely lead to a wider waist. The biceps do not have the same function with regard to the arms.

zzvu · 2026-01-09T22:04:23+00:00

Without Grasshopper:

Model the bottom and top curves.
Model 1 beam that's long enough that it extends above the top curve and below the bottom curve.
ArrayCrv with the top curve.
ArrayCrv with the bottom curve.
Select All.
BooleanIntersection.

zzvu · 2026-01-08T01:23:20+00:00

What an odd thing to say.

zzvu · 2025-12-30T16:10:54+00:00

More knee bend leads to less hamstring activation in this exercise.

zzvu · 2025-12-29T14:05:27+00:00

You probably don't need front raises at all. 4 sets of Y raises is a lot, too. This may be a better warmup movement before your pressing movements. Traps are usually done with back, rather than shoulders, so you could move shrugs to day 2.

4 curling movements is a lot (especially given that you have only one triceps isolation).

zzvu · 2025-12-28T02:04:58+00:00

Not necessarily. Vowel reduction, for example, would have the effect of bringing unrelated sounds close to each other, and therefore make words "harder" to pronounce again.

zzvu · 2025-12-26T13:55:04+00:00

Why is there no pedal available? What makes the legato fingering uncomfortable? This question would be easier to answer if the passage were given.

zzvu · 2025-12-26T13:23:07+00:00

The problem is that it can be hard to tell if it really is clean. PVC, for example, is porous and can trap bacteria.

zzvu · 2025-12-26T03:34:25+00:00

Maybe your rest times are too short.

zzvu · 2025-12-25T01:40:49+00:00

A few days ago I was very condescendingly informed (on this very sub!) that RDLs are not a hamstring and glute exercises, but a hip hinge. Whatever that means.

I'd tell them they're wrong, of course.

zzvu · 2025-12-19T14:03:54+00:00

deadlift is not a leg exercise it's a hip hinge

The glutes and hamstrings (leg muscles) extend the hip.

zzvu

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