Scansion
They tell us it’s National Spelling Bee day. I learn that there’s such a thing as “the dreaded schwa.”
Ultimately, the Bee is its own very strange world, and most of us visit for only a day or two a year. It’s a word where the hushed ESPN announcers think nothing of referencing the “dreaded schwa” — a schwa is the sort of “uh” sound that can be made in a word by any of several vowels, like the “a” in “against” or the “o” in “melody.” If it shows up in a word you don’t know, it can be very hard to figure out which letter to choose when spelling the word from hearing it pronounced. Thus: the dreaded schwa.
Oh, sure – you get that in writing, too, of course – those flashes of doubt about a particular schwa in a not very common word. Sometimes spellcheck helps you, and sometimes it doesn’t even know the word – mine didn’t recognize “rebarbative” this morning. Seriously?! Such an excellent word, plus I’ve used it before and your spellcheck is supposed to know you.
There’s a guy on local public radio here – Bill O’Grady – who drives me crazy by over-enunciating so much that he pronounces e-schwas as if they were ee. Beelieve, reeject, deecide, and so on. He’d make a hash of writing poetry, because he keeps turning iambs into dactyls.
What a splendid word. I thank you for sharing it.
Yes, KUOW (and NPR) in general will drive you nuts. I’ll be making dinner with the radio on and hear some bizarre hypercorrection and scream, “Who talks that way?!” It’s become an obsession.
Enjoy, thebewilderness!
Ben – ah – you too, huh? Comrade!
For years I have shaken my fist and shouted “it’s a schwa, a schwa” at the radio and tv. I am glad to see I am not alone. Now, if we could just get people to pronounce the article “the” with a schwa before a consonant and a long e before a vowel, i.e. thuh good, thuh bad, thee ugly. That may be a regional or generational variation but I grumble when I encounter it.
Oh, joy, we have a real Schwa Club here.
I hadn’t even noticed the part about long e the before a vowel until I heard or saw some other crank complain about it. It sounds slightly crappy because it introduces a glottal stop – thu’ ugly. Theeugly flows. I think I do it myself some of the time though. I guess sometimes I want the clunkiness of the glottal stop.
Oh, yes, I complain about this stuff on my blog all the time.
http://tonguesandtongues.blogspot.com/search/label/flaps
Julia F, I swoon at your feet…
Ooh, yes, rebarbative is my new favorite. Thanks for that!
Are spelling bees an exclusive English-speaking phenomenon, because of the language’s chaotic spelling?
Rob,
Speaking of the ‘schwa’. I can remember seeing a video of a Kiwi girl competing in a spelling bee in the US, the bewildered American judges were baffled by the way she ‘clipped her vowels’. Yes, of course, there’s also the Oz ‘a’, which also confuses other English speakers.
RJW – she didn’t even have a very strong accent! Americans do tend to struggle. Maybe the British too, but they’re far to reserved to say so :-)
NZ actually has quite a variety of regional/cultural accents, although to be fair most foreigners would struggle to pick them. My own accent is by local standards an english RP (my parents both taught english), although my UK colleagues don’t see it that way. According to them my vowels represent a singularity, with the exception of ‘off’ which for some reason I pronounce as ‘orf’. The kiwi accent lends itself to all sorts of jokes around six/sex/sux or beer/bear/bare etc. For real amusement find video of our current prime minister speaking. Watching him turn ‘actually’ into ‘aktshuly’ and other such beauties is as fascinating as watching train wreck. I’m told it’s part of his appeal…
Rob,
The problem for Americans with the Oz accent is that we don’t use the rhotic ‘r’, presumably it’s the same for Kiwis. I remember an article about a US exchange student at an Australian high school, the students were amused at his pronunciation of the word ‘orange’. I’m elderly and I have trouble understanding some Kiwis on the phone, emails are much easier.
“my UK colleagues don’t see it that way.” Just ignore them, what would they know? Some English accents are incomprehensible anyway.
“The kiwi accent lends itself to all sorts of jokes around six/sex/sux or beer/bear/bare etc.”
Yes, I’ve made the occasional joke, couldn’t resist. As long as you can understand each other who cares? Any dialect or accent is legitimate, everyone speaks with an accent or uses a dialect.
Thumbs up!
rhotic R – only in Southland. It’s how you spot one in the wild.
Sorry. I tend to speak that way, too.
Walter Brown, the blues singer with Jay McShann had the same annoying tick. Pronouncing ‘the’ as ‘thee.’ As if this was some extra ‘classy’ thing.
Well now in singing it’s a different thing. Like “We Shall Overcome” – that line “I do beelieve” – all four syllables get the emphasis, at least in the versions I’m familiar with. You can play around with songs. But there’s no reason to turn schwas into not-schwas while reading a traffic report on NPR.