List of the longest monosyllabic English words
The longest one-syllable word is 12 letters long!
Linguistics Micro Lesson: Tautology
Tautology is the unnecessary or unessential (and sometimes unintentional) repetition of meaning, using different words that effectively just say the same thing.
Examples:
- added bonus - “bonus” is an added extra, so “added bonus” is actually “added added extra”
- first introduced - “introduced” generally implies that it is the first time that someone or something has been presented
- free gift - “gift” is, by definition, something given without charge
- new innovation - “innovation” is defined as something new
- safe haven - “haven” is, by definition, a place of refuge and safety
- pre-book - “book” already contains the idea of reserving in advance, so “pre-” is redundant
What does “et cetera” literally mean?
Good to know: The literal meaning of the Latin phrase et cetera is “and the others.”
Linguistics Micro Lesson: Cognates, False Friends, and False Cognates
Cognates are words that sound similar in different languages, come from the same source or root word historically somewhere back down the line, and have the same meaning.
They can range from essentially the same word just pronounced with a foreign accent (English idea vs. Spanish idea; the words come from the older Latin and Greek words) to words that have slightly different appearances but still are recognizable if you have knowledge of the phonology (sound systems) of the foreign language, like the English school and the Russian shkola (школа).
You should be aware of false friends, too. These are words in different languages that look or sound similar but in fact do NOT mean the same thing. English’s fabric and Spanish’s fábrica are an example of this; the Spanish word actually means “factory.”
And finally, neither of these is to be confused with false cognates. To make matters more perplexing, false friends are actually often called false cognates, but this is technically incorrect. False cognates differ from cognates in just one way: the words are actually not derived from the same root word historically. So they’re still words that have the same meaning and sound about the same in both languages, except that they’re not historically related. It’s just a coincidence.
Examples of this are English’s fee with Chinese’s fei, English’s verb to occur and Japanese’s ocoru, and English’s dog with Mbabaram’s (that’s an Australian Aboriginal language) dog. Weird, huh?
Are you confused yet?
Linguistics Micro Lesson: Prescriptive Grammar vs. Descriptive Grammar
In linguistics we often focus on descriptive grammar. This means that we describe how language is actually used by people when speaking or writing. Think of it as someone listening to people speak at a cafe and taking notes on how they say things.
This contrasts with prescriptive grammar that states how a language “should” be spoken or written. This is what most of us think of when we hear the word “grammar.” Think of it as English class lessons when you were in grade school.
Here’s an example of the same basic sentence as you’d see it in descriptive and prescriptive grammars:
- Descriptive: Who are you going to invite to the party? (This is what people actually say)
- Prescriptive: Whom are you going to invite to the party? (This is what people “should” say)
The mere fact that a sentence is long does not make it a run-on sentence; sentences are run-ons only when they lack proper separation between independent clauses, so the writer who is vigilant in the use of appropriate punctuation and sentence construction will violate no usage rule limiting the number of independent clauses that may be assembled in a single sentence, though stylistic concerns and a desire not to emulate the excesses of Edward Bulwer-Lytton and other profligate wordsmiths may suggest a certain prudence and counsel a sensible limitation of verbiage within the span of two periods, such as is not evidenced in this overlong, but nonetheless technically correct and run-on-free sentence.
English Double Contractions
A list of those lovely words in English like he’sn’t, they’d’ve, y’all’re, and many more.
How’s Your English Pronunciation?
If you can pronounce every word in this poem correctly, you’ll speak English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.
—
The Chaos by G. Nolst Trenité
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
Etym Online: A freaking awesome site for anyone interested in language
For example, did you know that the word “paraphernalia” literally means “a woman’s property besides her dowery”? Awesome.
