Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
strengths
it breaks so many linguistic rules yet feels just fine to say
What linguistic rules does it break? 🤨
I assume it's about the apparently enormous consonant cluster at the ends, which is very rare in English. We have consonant clusters, yes, but not usually with five at once. Although it's actually only three, since "ng" and "th" are one consonant sound each, we just write them with two letters
it's very rare in any language, complexity at the start is not uncommon, but complexity at the end is, also the ordering of the consonant types and the fact there's two fricatives in a row at the end, it's not just a word that not only has no place existing, but also one that should be so unstable it'd change to something less complex in decades at most, yet it's stayed pretty consistent for a while
It's also actually 4 consonants as there's an unwritten k in many accents, or ng is pronounced as ŋg in others, so stɹɛŋ(k|g|∅)θs
I’d like to hear someone pronounce it as [stɹɛŋgθs] without choking.
It's pretty common in Northern English and I think maybe also Australian:
https://www.journal-labphon.org/article/id/6239/
The fact it's not only possible but regularly used when the expectation is that it'd be hard to do without choking is why it's such a weird word
Isn't that the case for basically any plural noun with a singular form ending in a fricative in English? Paths, months, depths, loaves, dwarves etc. There are also verbs ending with fricatives that do it when in the right tense, like moves, breathes, leaves, or triumphs
Absolutely, it's just English is very weird