How is it that people say y is "sometimes" a vowel but not w?

Princess Alice

Like, if y is a vowel in "toy", isn't w a vowel in "tow"?

Just sayin'.

Salix Babylonika

no the Y isn't a vowel in toy.

Klinotaxis

i've always heard it as them both being sometimes-vowels, actually

though i assumed with 'w' it would be some welsh gibberish

Tachyon

You're right, but 'y' also has the role of a vowel in the middle of words sometimes. or on the end of a word following the last consonant, e.g. 'lynx', 'synergy', 'style', 'fly'

Off the top of my head i can think of only one English word where the same is true for 'w', and it's a Welsh loanword ('cwm')

Obā-san

i may be misremembering what constitutes a vowel but im p sure your lips close on the w in tow

glennmagusharvey

and sometimes m and n are vowels too

Calica

isn't tow pronounced the same as toe?

i think the term is diphthong

Tachyon

it is

a vowel is a sound produced by unobstructed breath

Tachyon

i think my lips round slightly more when i say 'tow' but i'm not sure

just sitting here going 'toe', 'tow' to myself

glennmagusharvey

tow-hoe

Toolsie

*cough*RWBY*cough*

Aliroz

No.  

A, E, I, O, and U.  Sometimes Y.

Or else Syzygy couldn't be a word, because every word has at least one vowel.  Cwm is welsh garbageness, and my ancestors left the english isles to get away from that nonsense and live on the continent where W IS NOT A VOWEL.  Religious freedom was just as excuse, we mostly wanted to get away from w-as-a-vowel.

See, a long time ago, a guy murdered everybody's parents with a crwth, leaving everybody in the English Isles as orphans.  And that's why we don't use cheese with crackers to open locks, because turtles can't fly far enough to get the cows to us so we can milk the cows to make the cheese, and the only way to teleport turtles is to say the word, "crwth", which makes everybody too sad to pick the locks in the first place.

So, our safecracking wizarding heritage of the English Isles had to either learn to cope with the great tragedy of something-twenty-eight, or leave for another land, with different vowel opportunities and also buffalo.

Tachyon

ooh, good catch Toolsie

Klinotaxis

great britain isn't a continent anyway

in europe they have too many vowels. there's no other explanation for "bourgeoisie".

Toolsie

RWBY is a double whammy, because the w is pronounced "u" and the y is pronounced "e".

Toolsie

Yes, I am binge watching this show again.

glennmagusharvey

I recently watched Karen Senki which is like RWBY but by the Japanese (and the Chinese) and starring fewer superheroes and in a post-apocalylptic world ruled by robots rather than fantasy combat school.

Tatterhood

The thing is that really, letters aren't vowels or consonants, sounds are, and those don't correspond one-to-one.

The "ow" in "tow" is a vowel sound, all together. So W can be part of a vowel but, "cwm" excepted, it can't be one on its own in English.

Bee

For words like this, if you can pronounce the syllable without it, it's not a vowel.

If you take the w out of "tow" it's still pronounceable.  You can't pronounce shit without the o.

Salix Babylonika

apparently "cwm" is a Welsh loanword and the proper English version is 'corrie'.

Source: two minutes on wikiped

glennmagusharvey

I originally thought this was about whether u counts as a consonant in Spanish that sounds like w in English.

Princess Alice

Bee said:

For words like this, if you can pronounce the syllable without it, it's not a vowel.

If you take the w out of "tow" it's still pronounceable.  You can't pronounce shit without the o.

Here's where things get interesting, though: the vowel sound in "town" is very much different from the vowel sound in "ton".

glennmagusharvey

Central Avenue said:

Bee said:

For words like this, if you can pronounce the syllable without it, it's not a vowel.

If you take the w out of "tow" it's still pronounceable.  You can't pronounce shit without the o.

Here's where things get interesting, though: the vowel sound in "town" is very much different from the vowel sound in "ton".

pronounceable, not same

Tre

Yuyuko Saigyouji said:

apparently "cwm" is a Welsh loanword and the proper English version is 'corrie'.

Source: two minutes on wikiped

Tachyon

>welsh garbageness
>english isles

wow i can't believe i went to work and didn't notice i got trolled this hard

and i also can't believe Tre beat me to that joke

glennmagusharvey

does anyone else sometimes say "RWBY" like "ruby" but with the lips barely open for the first syllable (producing a very muffled sound)?  because that's a lot closer to the way the word written because it's more like how the letter w causes the mouth to be shaped typically

Crystal

Raises wing

Klinotaxis

reeby