2021-02-16 BWH

Greg Malivuk
greg.malivuk@gmail.com
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One of my friends perceives “homosexual” as “a clinical over-formalization to mask distaste”.
Basically, the choice to use a euphemism implies that you think it’s something that’s not appropriate to talk about normally.

Like many adjectives for people, “homosexual” as an adjective tends to be less offensive than “homosexual” as a noun.

“I have a gay friend.” “I support gay marriage.” “There are several gay people in that group.”
- These adjective uses are all fine.

“He’s a gay.” “The gays are getting married now.”
- These sound homophobic and dehumanizing.

Other words like this include “black”, “female”, “transgender”, “Japanese” (and other nationalities with -ese).
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-an words are an exception because, like nationalities, these words can naturally be both nouns and adjectives

American, Canadian, lesbian, etc.
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Syllables in spelling vs. pronunciation

“laboratory” is generally pronounced with three syllables in British and American English, but which syllables are pronounced is different:
	American: /ˈlæbrəˌtori/ (The first ‘o’ isn’t pronounced.)
	British: /ləˈborəˌtri/ (The second ‘o’ isn’t pronounced.)

“interesting” can be pronounced with three or four syllables (the first ‘e’ is dropped in fast speech)
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There are similarities between the pronunciations of /n/, /l/, and /r/.
- For /n/, the tongue touches the roof of your mouth all the way around.
- For /r/, the tip of the tongue moves back, but the sides still touch the roof of your mouth.
- For /l/, the tip of the tongue stays where it is for /n/, and the sides of the tongue pull away from the sides of your mouth.
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Sometimes the ‘r’ “deletes” the pronunciation of an unstressed vowel that comes before it.
Sometimes, ‘r’ switches places with a nearby vowel or consonant. (metathesis)

“comfortable” - First, we “delete” the ‘o’ before the ‘r’, and then we move the ‘r’ after the ‘t’, where it merges with the ‘a’ and sounds similar to the middle of “bird”

(Metathesis with an ‘r’ also happened in the words “third”, “thirteen”, and “thirty”.)
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English Vowels

Ten of the English vowel sounds correspond directly with the five vowel letters:
“long” vowels are the sound of the letter names. One way all of them are sometimes spelled is by using a silent ‘e’ at the end of the word. A common pattern for other spellings is expressed in the rhyme, “When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking.”
A: save, gave, make, hate, maid, wait, way, pay, paid, say
E: mete, feet, see, three, meat, seat, heat, read (present)
I: like, mite, write, ride, high, might, sight, fight, thigh (“igh”, if there’s not another vowel first, always has the long-I pronunciation)
O: stove, clove, rope, boat, coat, load
U: cute, mute, pure, zoo, food, mood (The ‘oo’ spelling doesn’t follow either pattern above, but is the most common spelling of the /u/ sound.)

“short” vowels are the sounds the letters usually make when they’re the only vowel in a short word:
A /æ/: sad, hat, cat, lap
E /ɛ/: bed, red, met, set, led (This is often spelled with letters that “should” sound like long-E: head, dead, read (past), lead (metal); “said” is spelled like long-A but also has a short-E pronunciation)
I /ɪ/: sit, ship, chip, hill (This is sometimes spelled with “ive” as in “live” (verb), “adjective”.)
O /ɑ/: rot, top, hot, mod
U /ʌ/: but, mud, hull (This is sometimes spelled with letters that “should” be long-O, like “love”, “some”, “dove” (bird), done.)

Other vowels in American English:
/ʊ/: look, cook, book, should, would, could, good
/ɔ/: caught, taught, bought, boss, mall
/oɪ/: boy, boil, soil, annoy
/aʊ/: round, sound, wow
/ə/ (called a “schwa”) - This is the typical pronunciation of most unstressed vowels.
	photography (The second ‘o’ has the primary stress and the ‘y’ has secondary stress. Both other vowels are pronounced as schwas.)
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Stressed syllables in English are pronounced higher and longer than unstressed syllables (also sometimes louder but that’s less important). Being pronounced longer means vowels usually get pronounced fully. In unstressed syllables they are reduced, often to [ə].
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Learner English



Future topics:

pronunciation (rules?) - especially for communicating with patients and children

Use of borrowed words

say/tell (and other often confused pairs)

tense overview/review (auxiliaries and prepositions, e.g.)

how to form good complex sentences (including punctuation)