"Gene" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 23 Nov 2008 22:38:56 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:


"Gerald Miller" wrote in message
. ..
On Sun, 23 Nov 2008 19:28:58 -0700, Lew Hartswick
wrote:

Gene wrote:
On Sun, 23 Nov 2008 11:13:18 -0800 (PST), RangersSuck
wrote:

Don't feel bad. I had to learn all 7 vowels.... now they claim only
5....

What happened to the "sometimes Y and W"
From the late 30s till 1949 it was:
A E I O U and sometimes Y and W. :-)
...lew...
Never heard of "sometimes W"
Gerry :-)}
London, Canada

You probably had a better grade-school education than we did.

What they should have told us is that Y and W are consonants, but, because
of some spelling artifacts in standard English, they occasionally stand in
for certain vowels. They have no unique vowel sounds of their own. They
just
fill in for others in some antique spellings.

That is, unless you're Welsh, in which case almost anything can be a
vowel,
and the more of them you string together, the better. d8-)

You have a better argument with "W" than "Y." Actually, "Y" is pretty
common: cry, by, sky, why, wry, spy, gym, crypt, hymn, lynx, myth,
glyph, slyly, tryst, nymph, Gypsy, pygmy, flyby, syzygy, etc.

Try substituting "i" for the "y" in each of those. Those are all "i" sounds,
some long, some short.

Again, there is no unique vowel sound signified by "y." It's just a
substitute for various pronunciations of "i."


I grew up on a street named Twyckenham....

An old street, no doubt. d8-)

--
Ed Huntress