Zompist Bboard Again

It is unknown whether or not travel to the past is possible. Unlike perpetual motion which is impossible according to physics as it is currently understood, the laws of physics have not been shown to absolutely forbid backwards time travel.

Even travel to the future (outside the ordinary rate) which is easier than travel to the past is likely not going to be possible for the next few centuries.

And of so, why aren't we getting any visitors from the future? Do we just live in a boring time?

How do you pronounce?

"want"
"wanna"
"wash"
"water"
"wasp"
"watch"
"watt"
"wand"
"wander"
"wallet"

I never have this except in the standard attaboy/attagirl. Oh, is that what ‘attaboy’ is supposed to mean? (Mind you, not that that makes sense anyway… ‘that’s a boy’?) 'that's my boy' makes sense According to Wiktionary and Merriam Webster online "attaboy" is an alteration of "that'...

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Apr 16, 2024 2:25 pm Does anyone know anything about the variant /æt/ of that? I have it and I have heard my daughter use it. And it clearly is not a variant of it to me; it feels like an allomorph of that rather than an independent word.

I never have this except in the standard attaboy/attagirl.

How do you pronounce?

"length"
"strength"
"penguin"
"Jenkins"

Hold up, Travis, your TRAP is just plain [ɛ]? It's not a diphthong? Also I also have the NCVS and my <ketchup> is definitely DRESS (which is also [ɜ]-ish for me). It's homophonous with "catch-up" (as in "playing catch-up") for me. "Ketchup" with Travis's TRAP vowel wou...

Well, one note though - TRAP has changed to FACE unambiguously before /ŋ/, such that I do not think of it as TRAP, but this should be no surprise to you. Same here. The vowel I use before the velar nasal is FACE in words like "bank", "thank", "rang", etc., but not in c...

A high school textbook in health class had the word "healthful". The health teacher while reading out loud from the textbook changed it to "healthy", so even she found the word odd apparently.

In my experience "one hundred one" and the like is uncommon in America outside of math classes and among people other than math teachers who for some strange reason insist that saying "and" in such numbers in incorrect.

I have never heard those dogs being referred to as "one hundred one Dalmatians".

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Sun Jan 07, 2024 3:17 pm Where on Earth does "one hundred and five" imply 100.5?

Yeah, really. I would say that as "one hundred point five". I have never heard of "and" being used there.

How do you say numbers like "101"? Like "one hundred and one" or "one hundred one"? I say "one hundred and one". Math teachers at school told us not to say "and" in numbers like "101", "102", "103", etc. telling us that...

How do you say numbers like "101"? Like "one hundred and one" or "one hundred one"? I say "one hundred and one". Math teachers at school told us not to say "and" in numbers like "101", "102", "103", etc. telling us that ...

I never remember hearing anyone say "ketchup" with a vowel as low as [æ]. That pronunciation may have existed once, but I am not sure if it still exists in any varieties presently. Travis has TRAP in the word, but for him that TRAP vowel is [ɛ] and the DRESS vowel is [ɜ]. This seems to sug...

How do you guys pronounce ketchup ? I ask because I am used to it being pronounced with /æ/, which I realize as [ɛ], rather than with the /ɛ/ implied by the spelling, which I would pronounce as [ɜ]. It could be due to the word "ketchup" failing to participate in the Northern Cities Vowel ...

I once heard a commercial for Beneful dog food where they said "healthful, flavorful, Beneful". They were of course using "healthful" because it ends the same way as "flavorful" and "Beneful".

Do people who have the cot-caught merger merge them to a vowel more like GenAm LOT or more like GenAm THOUGHT? For the longest time I thought (having heard a few people who merge them to something like [a], even more fronted than my LOT) that this merger wasn't as common as it's said to be, with oc...

The pin-pen merger once marked someone as being from the Southern United States except for AAVE speakers. However it is not so uncommon these days for people from various parts of the Western and Midwestern United States to have the pin-pen merger these days. It no longer definitely can tell you th...