Pronunciation Guide

I recently realized that I have been throwing characters like ä, ū, and ə at you without ever explaining what I mean by them. So that's what this is.

Character	Examples
ă	apple
ā	ate
ä	all*
ĕ	egg
ē	even
ə	about, taken, pencil, eloquent, supply, sibyl
ĭ	igloo
ī	item
ō	omen
ŏ	on*
ö	foot
ŭ	undo
ū	zoom, dune
ch	chore
dh	there
kh	Juárez, lechaim†
ŋ	hung
sh	shirt
th	thin

*/ä/ sounds almost the same as /ŏ/, but I'm going to keep them both.
†I'm considering representing the /kh/ sound as /x/ instead. Which is less confusing?

Today is Cool

Hey, guess what. Today is Monday 23!

What?, you don't get it.

Well, then, here's it —--—›


Also:

I've not done a Word of the Day for a lot of days. Enclosed, please find one.

The word today is revolution /rĕ,və·lū'shən/. It's three parts: re- + volu + -tion. re- = again (and has since Latin); volu <= volvere = latin for "to roll"; -tion = a suffix that makes a noun from a verb.

Interestingly, the verb with which revolution is related is revolve. This is interesting because of the U›V transformation. I think this probably is a result of certain things the Romans did. Many old Roman texts are written in ALL CAPS. ADDITIONALLY, THEY WOULDN'T ADDANYSPACESANDVERYLITTLEPUNCTUATION·IFTHEYGOTTOTHEENDOFTHELINETHEYDJUSTKEEPGOINGONTHENEXTONE. Look here. Anyway, here's the important bit: Because they wrote with a chisel or stylus (stylus is Latin for "A special-shaped stick used for writing"), the letters were often rather rectilinear. The Us, consequently, would all look like Vs.

Also, the Romans never really had J until late-later. Like, the first emperor probably wrote IULIUSCEASAR on his homework as a kid.

MAYBEITWASIVSTATYPOGRAPHICREVOLVTION.

Happy Birthday!!

There are a few special people whom I think deserve mention today:




It's Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin!

Both are 200 years old today!! (They were born 12 February 1809; They could have been, like, buds!, y'know?  But they had different jobs to do, I guess.)

To these two guys—and to anyone else out there who is celebrating her or his birth today—

Happy Birthday!!!

(Hmm, ... because we often use the suspension point (or elipsis, or "dot dot dot" or ...) as a pause in speech, I think we should show a pause for dramatic effect with !!!.)

(I guess we should have told you earlier !!! you're adopted.)