Editing 2907: Schwa

{{comic
| number    = 2907
| date      = March 15, 2024
| title     = Schwa
| image     = schwa_2x.png
| imagesize = 301x389px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = Doug's cousin, the one from London, runs a Bumble love cult.
}}

==Explanation==
English features a lot of {{w|Reduced vowel|vowel reduction}}, where vowels in unstressed syllables often become a short 'uh'-like sound called a {{w|schwa}} (ə). As [[Randall]] notes, this makes it by far the most common sound in English, and [[Randall]] makes the observational joke that one can learn the English language without learning any other vowel sounds, if one sticks to the right topics of conversation. He gives conversational examples which demonstrate exactly that, using words that contain ''only'' the schwa vowel -- accurate for dialects with the {{w|Phonological history of English close back vowels#STRUT–COMMA merger|ꜱᴛʀᴜᴛ-commᴀ merger}}, but not for those without it, like <!-- No such page for {{w| -->Standard Southern British English<!-- ...Nspf! }} -->, {{w|Australian English}}, and the <!-- No such page for {{w| -->Mid-Atlantic Accent<!-- ....Nspf! }} -->.

The humor lies in the unusal and impractical elements of this tip:
* It's ''impractical'', since limiting oneself to only words with schwa will exclude using many common words (like "no") and make for stilted speech (using "Nuh uh" every time instead).
* It's ''highly unusual'' for hyper-efficient language learning to focus on all words with a common vowel sound rather than, say, the 1,000 most common words. English learners learn between 14 and 20 vowel sounds - depending on the dialect - which are written with just six vowel letters (AEIOU and sometimes Y). For example, the 'a' in "cat" may not be the same 'a' in "father", depending on dialect.

Randall has had a longstanding interest in minimalist visions of English communication. He published a whole book, Thing Explainer, about explaining complex ideas — such as the Up-Goer 5 — using “only the ten hundred words people use the most often.”

The intended pronunciation of the conversation can be written in the {{w|International Phonetic Alphabet}} (while preserving punctuation marks) as:
:Megan: /wəts əp<font color="gray">?</font> wəz dəɡ ˈɡənə kəm<font color="gray">?</font> dəɡ ləvz brən{{w|Voiceless postalveolar affricate|t͡ʃ}}<font color="gray">.</font>/
:Ponytail: /ˈnə{{w|Glottal stop|ʔ}}<nowiki />ə<font color="gray">,</font> dəɡz stək kəz əv ə ˈtən(ə)l əbˈstrək{{w|Voiceless postalveolar fricative|ʃ}}(ə)n<font color="gray">.</font> ə trək dəmpt ə tən əv ˈən{{w|Voiced palatal approximant|j}}(ə)nz<font color="gray">.</font>/
:Megan: /ə{{w|Voiceless velar fricative|x}}<font color="gray">.</font>/

The title text, in IPA, if only schwas were used:
:/dəgz ˈkəz(ə)n<font color="gray">,</font> {{w|Voiced dental fricative|ð}}<nowiki />ə wən frəm ˈlənd(ə)n<font color="gray">,</font> rənz ə ˈbəmb(ə)l ləv kəlt<font color="gray">.</font>/

==Transcript==
:[Megan, Cueball, and Ponytail stand in front of a dinner table, with Megan and Cueball facing Ponytail. Megan has her hand on the rightmost chair while Ponytail has her palm out.]
:Megan: What's up? Was Doug gonna come? Doug loves brunch.
:Ponytail: Nuh uh, Doug's stuck 'cause of a tunnel obstruction. A truck dumped a ton of onions.
:Megan: Ugh.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:The schwa is the most common vowel sound in English. In fact, if you stick to the right conversation topics, you can avoid learning any other ones.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Language]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]]