xkcd #2942: Fluid Speech

https://xkcd.com/2942

explainxkcd.com for #2942

Alt text:

Thank you to linguist Gretchen McCulloch for teaching me about phonetic assimilation, and for teaching me that if you stand around in public reading texts from a linguist and murmuring example phrases to yourself, people will eventually ask if you’re okay.

  • @[email protected]English
    5•21 days ago

    OMG, that makes it so much worse. If someone tells you about a specific place, and you want to look it up later, you have absolutely zero chance of ever spelling it correctly. Good luck typing lester or woster in Wikipedia or Maps.

    • ZagorathEnglish
      6•21 days ago

      As it happens, that worked just fine:

      Worcester is famous even outside the UK because of Worcestershire sauce (pronounced “woster-shuh” sauce), the condiment named after the region. And because the name is on the bottle, it’s easy for people to remember.