Teacher Discussion Forums

The mismatch between the number of letters for vowels and the number of vowel phonemes does present a problem. The second problem is presented by the fact that the particular vowel used depends on the regional variety. Standard British English has twenty vowels, but it seems Network American English...

Tell me Masha, why is it more complicated to have a phonetic spelling such as 'you' than a non-phonetic spelling such as 'u'. The letter 'U' is pronounced as with an initial 'y' sound. And do you seriously think 'ur' and 'urs' are going to be more easily grasped then 'your' and 'yours'. The problems...

You are also somewhat inconsistent; you are giving allophones for /l/ and /r/ but not for /d/ for example.

So you are including allophones in your list of consonants. Fair enough but you don't make it at all clear that the IPA diagram you give is of phonemes, but the details given below also include symbols not on the chart because they mention sounds that are not phonemically distinct in English. Frankl...

A very sloppy beginning. You state: The sound system of English consists of about 2/3 consonants, which are either voiced or voiceless depending on which sounds surround them, and 1/3 vowels, which may be long or short depending on where they fall within a word (phonology). and The 30+ consonants in...

Non-restrictive 'that' has become fairly rare in edited prose. It does crop up but 'that' is now used almost exclusively in restrictive clauses.

"I remember how you could dive off the highest diving board."
Remote in time

"If could reach it if I was a bit taller."
Remote from reality

"Could I use your phone for a minute?"
Remote socially

My experience is that LI lexical acquisition continues into adulthood.

Definitely singular verb here. We're talking about one individual number.

Stuff 'participles' and 'gerunds'. I use the correct technical term and talk about the '...ING form'.

Is there or has there ever been a word or words ("preferably" derisive) in English for a woman whose husband is unfaithful?

'Married'?

Overjoyed Garner hasn't found software to change all the initial 'Howevers' in my sentences to 'Buts'; very restrained of him. The trouble is that Garner isn't giving a principle but a preference, and he is misselling it. He doesn't say, "This is a personal preference I've pulled out of my rear end,...

Halpern's a nutcase. Reckons that Turing devised the Turing Test because he was a lonely homosexual who had only the computer to talk to as a friend. While prescriptivism endeavors to improve upon them. By insisting on the 'preference du jour'. For the idiocies of prescriptivism have a look at the r...

Frankenstrunk is a load of grammatical nonsense, as Pullum rightly points out Jotham. Have you bothered to read the article? I doubt it. The examples White gives of 'passives' are not passives in either American or British English, and the difference between the two forms is much smaller than you th...

Original link please.