Posted in Writing on Sep 22nd, 2009
The trees began to thin, and we came out onto the edge of a clearing; and in the same moment the harvest moon, which had been veiled by thunder-rack, sailed out into a lake of clear sky. Ragged silver wings of cloud formed the shores of the lake, and beyond the fringe of hazel and [...]
On Tuesday, I talked about stops. Today we’ll focus on the promised nasals, sibilants, and liquids. (And you thought you left all this behind after English 101!)
Nasals—n, m, ng—are sounded in the nose. Say inning, and you’ll see what I mean. You can feel the n and ng sounds at the top of the back [...]
Posted in Writing on Sep 15th, 2009
Oh goody! Another word-geek fest today. In my last post, I talked about vowel sounds. Today, we’ll focus on consonants.
Most consonants cannot actually be said without an accompanying vowel sound. (Try saying the sound for “d” and see what I mean: you can’t really say it unless you add a schwa or some other vowel [...]