Simple Machines: three or six?

Cow. The "ow" is a diphthong, which could also be "ou."

-- Ed Huntress

There are only *two*. Not three. Not six. Two: The inclined plane, and the lever. The others are all special cases of one or the other of those, in that exactly the same principle is used:

- the wheel and axle is a lever in rotary motion

- so is the pulley

- the screw is an inclined plane wrapped around a cylinder

- the wedge is an inclined plane stood on its point

Cwm: a valley, especially one created through glacial action.

Ok, it's Welsh, but still...

Tove

Welsh doesn't count. They write sentences with 100 words, too. d8-)

-- Ed Huntress

So then too there would be 'fowl', 'owl' 'rowell' 'dowell'. Also, a pyx is almost invariably silver or gold, noble metals to house this most holy thing.

John

On Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:54:45 -0500, the infamous "Ed Huntress" scrawled the following:

Ghoti = fish.

(see wiki)

------------------------------------------------------- "i" before "e", except after "c", what a weird society. ----

Unfortunately, no. Because of the following sounds, those w's are hard consonants. You have to do it by ear, but note that the diphthong (the ou sound) runs into a harder sound ("wu" or "we," short "e") which provides the separation for the following sound. Those consonant sounds are provided by the w's.

When the ou stands alone, as in cow or how, it's easier to call the sound a vowel sound, because the w is substituting for a legitimate vowel in a diphthong.

This is where it gets flakey around the edges, and it's why y and w are sometimes called "semivowels."

Ancient Greek is not my thing, but I think that pyxis, from which the Latin transliteration was derived, was a wooden box.

-- Ed Huntress

I wouldn't have realized 'how' (or 'vowel' for that matter) would count, since it's being used to modify the sound of the 'o' in both cases.

I was puzzled about why some speakers say "an historic event" and others "a historic event".

I finally realized it depended on the speaker's dialect. If "historic" is pronounced with very little of the "H" sound, ie "istoric", then the vowel rule applies and "an" is used.

But if the "H" sound is there then the consonant rule applies and "a" is used.

Jeff

I don't know if this helps or hurts, but the "modification" you're talking about actually is a combination sound: a diphthong. You may want to look that up.

And the bad news: The w in "how" is used as a vowel. In "vowel," it's used as a consonant. I know, the diphthongy sound is the same, but the w in vowel is a harder sound that sets it off from the vowel that follows -- making it a consonant.

These are among the reasons that the idea of "sometimes y and sometimes w" is not very popular with English teachers these days. It's not that it isn't worth talking about, it's just that it doesn't fit very well into the little memory singsong they use to teach the vowels. It probably leads to more confusion than understanding.

-- Ed Huntress

Just try referring to a person from Wales as an Englishman and you will get a lot more than a hundred words! Gerry :-)} London, Canada

We just did that to keep the riff-raff from learning English, so they'll stay away.

-- Ed Huntress

It's more likely to be the other way around, in England at least; the famous h-droppers, the cockneys, wouldn't dream of saying "an hotel" or an "historic site" but 'Queen's English' speakers do not drop the h and would say "an hotel" or "an historic site". Martin

OK, then the w in 'dowse' is not a vowel because it is followed by a true consonant?

Greek defeated me too. Pyxis could well be just a box. I was assuming the religious item, a container for the sacrament.

John

Very well put -- thanks. I ain't a linguist..... introspecting (and I know just how unreliable that is -- I did computer vision research in a prior life) the 'w' sound in 'how' and in 'vowel' seems the same. I'll bet there are regional (i.e. accent) differences, too. FWIW, I grew up in the northwest (Seattle) and have lived in the southwest (Las Cruces NM, about 50 miles from El Paso TX) for roughly

Well, speaking as a computer science professor, you *really* want to get the raw basics across before you want to worry about nuances.

No. That's a vowel. Try substituting a "u" for the "w." If it more or less works (douse or douze), then it's generally a vowel. If it doesn't (couard for coward; vouel for vowel), then it's generally a consonant.

Where "w" is used as a vowel, it's most often just a straight substitute for "u." As I said, it's easier to spot when the "w" ends a word, but it can be a vowel even when it doesn't, as long as it's just substituting for a "u."

-- Ed Huntress

It could be harder to distinguish with some regional pronunciations. For example, if you don't hear the "e" when you pronounce "vowel"; in other words, if it sounds to you the same as "fowl," then doing it by ear won't help you distinguish a vowel from a consonant usage of "w." In standard pronunciation, the "w" in "fowl" is a vowel. In "vowel," it's a consonant. Here it helps to subsitute a "u" for the "w." It works in "foul." It doesn't work in "vouel." Not unless you're French.

And English is tough enough as it is. I hardly learned a thing in elementary-school grammar. They way they taught it to us then, it really turned a lot of kids off.

-- Ed Huntress

Sorry, I wasn't paying close enough attention to the examples. The "w's" in "fowl" and "owl" are vowels. In "rowell" and "dowell," they're consonants. Try "foul, oul." They work -- in owl, it more-or-less works. But they don't work in "rouell" or "douell." That "e" sound following the "w" requires a harder sound from the "w" -- actually, a combination of two sounds -- to separate the "e."

It's probably time to quit this before we meet ourselves coming around the circle. d8-)

-- Ed Huntress

OK Ed are the W s in above vowels or consonants? :-) or one of each :-) ...lew...