Main Page

Welcome to the explain xkcd wiki!
We have an explanation for all 2942 xkcd comics, and only 11 (0%) are incomplete. Help us finish them!

Latest comic

Go to this comic explanation

|< < Prev Comic #2942 (June 5, 2024)

Fluid Speech

Title 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.

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by sum'un who wud rite like'is all'u time if e'cud gi'away with'd- Title text not adressed. How would the utterance of the fourth panels actually sound? Do NOT delete this tag too soon.

This comic is about sandhi.

Randall states that people often unconsciously shorten words in various ways when speaking to optimize the fluidity of speech. He then presents four diagrams of the human mouth and paths depicting how it moves when saying increasingly fluid versions of "going to."

The first diagram gives the pronunciation /ɡoʊɪŋ tu/ GO-ing TO. This is the version found in dictionaries and used when one is speaking slowly and deliberately. Here, the tongue may have to move a lot; the first syllable starts with a velar /g/ followed by the back vowels /oʊ/, but the second syllable /ɪŋ/ features a jump from the hard palate right back to the back of the mouth. This is followed by an even bigger jump to the middle of the mouth with alveolar /t/, and back towards the velum again with /u/.

The second diagram shows a slightly more efficient pronunciation, in which the /ŋ/ is replaced by an /n/ instead since both /n/ and /t/ are alveolar sounds. The final /u/ weakens to the more neutrally positioned /ə/, which is the "default" vowel (aka you should be making this sound if you relax your mouth completely and give a small grunt). All doubling back of the tongue is now removed, leaving only a small, nearly closed loop.

The third diagram shows an even more efficient and very common pronunciation of the phrase, /ɡʌnə/ GUN-na. Here rather than optimizing tongue movement hard-to-pronounce sounds are removed or further replaced instead. The /t/ is dropped leaving only /n/, while the vowel(s) of the first syllable go from /o/ to /ʌ/ between which the only difference is the optional rounding, or pursing of the lips - though more likely given Randall Munroe's prior comics demonstrating a ꜱᴛʀᴜᴛ-coᴍᴍᴀ merger, a supposed /ə/.

The fourth diagram shows the most reduced pronunciation. The /n/ is lost as a consonant in its own right, with only remnants of its existence found by the nasalisation of the preceding vowel where part of the airflow is redirected through the nose. (This is, incidentally, the same manner how French got its famous nasal sounds - sequences of what used to be vowel + /n/ from Latin were reduced.) This way, the only motions one must make is to draw the tongue to the back of the mouth to articulate the /ɡ/, although the epiglottis or other laryngial elements may also be employed in the modulation of such rear-mouth plosive effects.

In the bottom text, Randall comments on the perception of reduced pronunciations, remarking that while many perceive them as being sloppy, in reality deliberately pronouncing each word with the "supposed" pronunciation in its dictionary form sounds stilted, forced, and unnatural.

For more about Schwa, see 2907: Schwa.

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[Above the panel:]

Fun fact: Experienced speakers constantly merge, drop, and alter sounds when talking at normal conversational speed to optimize for efficient mouth movement.

[The panel shows four labeled side profiles of a mouth with paths of sounds made in different parts of the mouth. There is a label "More fluid" with an arrow pointing to the right. From left to right:]

[Label:]

Going to

/ɡoʊɪŋ tu/

[Path:] G O >> I >> NG >> >> >> T >> >> O

[Label:]

Goin' to

/ɡoʊɪn tə/

[Path:] G O >> I >> N T >> >> O

[Label:]

Gonna

/ɡʌn.ə/

[Path:] G O >> NN >> A

[Label:]

How fluent speakers actually say it when speaking rapidly

/ɡə̃/

[Path:] G >> >> ə̃

[Below the panel:]

If you think you don't do this, try to use "hot potato" in a sentence and fully pronounce the first "t" without sounding like an alien impersonating a human.

Is this out of date? .

New here?

Last 7 days (Top 10)

Rank Score Pages Changes Username 1 29 26 29 Usb-rave 2 25 21 25 Psychoticpotato 3 22 18 22 TheusafBOT 4 15 11 16 Elektrizikekswerk 5 14 7 21 Apollo11 6 12 2 26 Maplestrip 7 11 5 13 Asdf 8 10 5 12 Charlie Spring 9 7 5 6 JBYoshi 10 6 3 6 Ianrbibtitlht

Lots of people contribute to make this wiki a success. Many of the recent contributors, listed above, have just joined. You can do it too! Create your account here.

You can read a brief introduction about this wiki at explain xkcd. Feel free to sign up for an account and contribute to the wiki! We need explanations for comics, characters, themes and everything in between. If it is referenced in an xkcd web comic, it should be here.

• If you're new to wiki editing, see the explain xkcd:Editor FAQ for a specific guidance to this Wiki and the more general help on how to edit wiki pages. There's also a handy wikicode cheatsheet.

• Discussion about the wiki itself happens at the Community portal.

• You can browse the comics from List of all comics or by navigating the category tree at Category:Comics.

• There are incomplete explanations listed here. Feel free to help out by expanding them!

Rules

Don't be a jerk!

There are a lot of comics that don't have set-in-stone explanations; feel free to put multiple interpretations in the wiki page for each comic.

If you want to talk about a specific comic, use its discussion page.

Please only submit material directly related to (and helping everyone better understand) xkcd... and of course only submit material that can legally be posted (and freely edited). Off-topic or other inappropriate content is subject to removal or modification at admin discretion, and users who repeatedly post such content will be blocked.

If you need assistance from an admin, post a message to the Admin requests board.