Timeline for Name for letter U in words like 'suede' and 'penguin'
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 4, 2016 at 3:16 | vote | accept | Lexia | ||
| Jul 2, 2016 at 21:25 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jul 14, 2016 at 23:10 | |||||
| Jul 2, 2016 at 21:01 | comment | added | Mitch | /w/ is a semivowel. Also called a glide (like /j/ or yod | |
| Jul 2, 2016 at 19:59 | answer | added | ruakh | timeline score: 4 | |
| Jun 29, 2016 at 4:26 | comment | added | Lexia | Thanks to those who have responded to my question so far. As you can tell, I am not a trained linguist. I have looked at many sites on the web (e.g. facweb.furman.edu/~wrogers/phonemes/phono/semi.htm) from which I made my comments. With more research, I now want to know if the U in suede is a semivowel based on the fact that it sounds like /w/ regardless of which letter is used in the spelling (also one have a /w/ at the beginning of the word where no letter is used to provide the sound). | |
| Jun 28, 2016 at 10:35 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackEnglish/status/747740244011790336 | ||
| Jun 28, 2016 at 7:39 | comment | added | Max Williams | If you want a name for it you could find it in the vowel chart in the phonetic alphabet: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet#Vowels | |
| Jun 28, 2016 at 7:33 | history | edited | herisson | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 310 characters in body; edited tags; edited title
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| Jun 28, 2016 at 7:31 | comment | added | herisson | The sound /w/ is called a semivowel (this term is written as one word, not as two). It can exist in words no matter how they're spelled—the semivowel /w/ is in the word suede, but also in the words wet and one. If you want to describe the different sounds letters can make, I think you just need to use a phrase like "non-syllabic U". | |
| Jun 28, 2016 at 7:15 | comment | added | phoog | What do you think "semivowel" means? What experts don't recognize it as a semivowel in these examples? What do those experts recognize it as instead? | |
| Jun 28, 2016 at 7:10 | comment | added | Lexia | I've read that y and w are semi vowels but the U in suede and penguin doesn't really conform to the definition of a semi vowel, and experts don't recognise it as a semi vowel, so I was wondering if there was another category that I don't know about. I'd like to be able to explain why the U says /w/. | |
| Jun 28, 2016 at 7:06 | review | First posts | |||
| Jun 28, 2016 at 7:21 | |||||
| Jun 28, 2016 at 7:05 | comment | added | herisson | It's called... "the letter U". Seriously though, what do you mean? I don't understand what type of word you're looking for. Can you give an example sentence showing the context where you'd need a word like this? | |
| Jun 28, 2016 at 7:02 | history | asked | Lexia | CC BY-SA 3.0 |