On Tue, Nov 09, 1999 at 12:37:59PM -0500, E Forrest Carpenter thus spoke:
> > Correct me if I'm wrong here, but if my understanding of the schwa is
> > correct, the 'com' is not the syllable containing the schwa here -- the
> > 'for', albeit almost glossed over, contains the schwa. The schwa is the
> > dead sound in the second syllable of father or mother.
>
> FWIW, the Merriam-Webster online dictionary[1] (which uses ampersands to
> denote schwas in its pronunciation key), lists every vowel sound in the
> word "uncomfortable" as a schwa, whether you pronounce it with four
> syllables (&n-c&mf-t&r-b&l) or five (&n-c&m-f&r-t&-b&l).
>
> [1] http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary
Thanks for the vindication. :)
And while this is getting horribly off-topic *hint,hint*, the father/mother
I would beg to differ with, unless you're from New England, in which case
yeah, it's probably pronounced like that in the second syllable... Or if
you're singing it, in which case you avoid "hard" er's and flatten them out
to a slight schwa. Normal midwestern speech where I'm from does not have
those as schwa's.
mark->
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