xkcd #2942: Fluid Speech

https://xkcd.com/2942

explainxkcd.com for #2942

Alt 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.

  • SkyezOpen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    6 months ago

    Got called a rich kid for knowing the word “carafe.” Pretty sure I learned it from a book, my parents didn’t have carafe with mountain spring water or some shit around the house.

      • KazumaraEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        The term “carafe” puts me in mind of a crystal glass container of between half a litre and two litres of volume for wine or water. What is it in relation to coffee? The glass bowl the coffee drips into in one of those dripping coffee makers?

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

          Exactly that. I picture it as one of those big jugs on an industrial coffee machine with the black or orange plastic to indicate if it has caffeine

    • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      6 months ago

      I learned that word from my dad when I was a child. we kept a carafe in the refrigerator designated for water. It’s a wine carafe but can put anything in it. My dad was an alcoholic so he had a wine carafe and a lot of other alcohol-related accoutrements like beer steins.